Guajiro Masterplan Continued...

Early in the process, we became interested in how the process of weaving became ingrained in the way all things were made.  The cyclical nature of life is closely tied to the creation of a weave.  Derived from tales of Wale' Keru.  The construction of a woven waddle and daub wall or textile chinchorro had extended meaning through the surface it created.

The Masterplan needed to embody the same language of a weave, that has a continuous process.  The process of weaving should be present within a passive, ecological design for the Wayuu.

A series of intensive mappings began us down a track to discover how weaving gets integrated directly into pathways used by the Wayuu.  Several types of paths exist within the pastoral landscape of this group.

                                                                      A hierarchy of pathways engage difference with the site of the Wayuu.

The map above depicts blue paths as dominant, green as secondary, tan and yellow as third and fourth respectively. The process in which this paths get created is sequential.   Each road is added sequentially.

In this case phase one is refering to an adjacent commercial road that will be utilized by the Wayuu.  When phase two is established, the Wayuu will passively and naturallly derive a path that weaves very carefully around vegatation to get to the commercial road.  By phase three, we begin to see a pattern that replicates itself continuously throughout the landscape, a road that intersects both roads, establishing a internal node.

The creation of a node helped our team to discover areas that could be developed as a result of these internal conditions.  With this in mind we would establish three major areas of emphasis, the civic center, the commercial area, and places for new rancherias to be incorporated.

An early iteration of how to establish major boundaries with this nodal places should us how the larger site might begin to represent the Wayuu who inhabit this land.

To begin looking at how these nodes might work as architectural centers, we would be reminded of an early study we undertook.

In the above example, we established early that we wanted to find ways to find networked centers by means of a weave.  Early on, we wanted to find ways for pathways to naturally converge to become places for social and resource exchange.

Above is a map that shows existing rancherias outlined in red, dispersed around what would become our civic center in yellow, as well as and aqueduct just to the south.  The map also describes the directness of a connection from the civic center to the commercial center to the northwest, just off a major commercial road.

For the master plan of Rancheria La Paz, our team has been inspired by the path-making and level of intimacy in the different areas of the site. In creating a new commercial hub, civic center, and Rancheria, the main concern is to connect the Wayuu to the westernized world, while protecting their livelihood and culture from overwhelming commercial exposure. We let the network created by the Wayuu, as they’ve meandered through the arid plain; indicate the location of the new programmatic elements of our Master Plan. It is important that existing Rancherias are not affected by the new commercial hub. The civic center, which is composed of a school and clinic, is allowed more integration to the Wayuu.

The Commercial Node

After close analysis of the interweaving of paths and of the nodes created in the landscape, it seemed appropriate to locate the commercial hub at the end of the large road leading to Manaure, next big city. The proposed commercial hub is ideally composed of open structures reminiscent of the Enramada. The Wayuu women can weave, while they sell their woven goods. The commercial hub also becomes a tourist attraction. It looks out to a scenic stretch of beach.  

The procession into a Commercial Node begin off a modern, rigid boulevard and creates a barrier for the outsider.

The road that was once modern and derived from the city of Manaure now has been captured by a street of textile vendors.  The commercial boulevard comes to an

end of the shop structures, asking that the oustider stay to the perimeter of Wayuu territory.

This place allows for an exchange of cultures, one modern, one ancient.  The sell and making of textiles is put on display for the outsider to see.

The Civic Node

A few miles away from the commercial center, the civic center is located in an empty arid node, produced by overlapping pathways. It occupies a central position within the site and can easily provide to many surrounding Rancherias.  Currently there is a school in Rancheria La Paz that provides education to all the other Rancherias. The goal is to stem from that existing structure and explore other possibilities of sustainability, such as distribution of water, and eco-gardens for food.

In Open Space, paths are still naturally defined by the movements of the Wayuu.  These paths were determined from map analysis, looking for tire tracks and other makings to define the Wayuu's movement.

Above:  An example of small education campuses may be composed of buildings within the Wayuu's vernacular building methods.

Above:  A demonstration of how the structures might be inhabited by Children.

Nodes for Rancherias

Nodes on the Perimeter take on a very specific role for the Wayuu.  For years as water has become scarce, the search for adequate water resources has been very difficult.  This semi-nomadic tribe is sometimes force to travel for long distances with herds to sustain an economy, now as herds have dwindled and water is needed for other daily tasks allowing the nodes for rancherias to become architectural and infrastructural at the same time becomes crucial.

Above: An explanation about how a water collection center gets created.  Woven walls stand in a communal garden, capturing water and moving into storage, to be pumped out by windmill and made available for everyday life.



Guajiro Masterplan

Thursday, October 21st saw the end of an intial design process that was directed toward a parcel of land that has seen significant change of over the past two hundred years,  land that remains home to the Wayuus who remain there.  However, many from the group have been separated from their clans, being forced to move away from home as a result of a changing climate and a diminishing water sources.

A solution for the Guajiro Masterplan, placed just outside of Manaure, sought to provide a permanent place of residence for civic, commercial, and residential entities of Wayuu living, a cultural of semi-nomadic clans. 

Students from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island have been working with students from the Autonomous University in Colombia to combine efforts to create work that give feasible options for organizations and governmental bureaus that might want to help the Wayuu to bridge into the modern world.

Programmatic Elements of a Wayuu Masterplan.

1.

Develop Synergy between buildings and open spaces based on programmatic relations.

Building synergy throughout a landscape is a product of familiarity and flexibility.  The horizon line weaves together inhabitants, buildings, and the land.  Nature, in this context, has the same characteristics as a seemingly, never-ending volume, like a sanctuary with niches built into the ground below for life’s creatures to inhabit.

The relationships of niche size, fluctuates in response to climate, where vegetation in some areas surrounds as a collective unexplored territory, to be privately lived in.  The smallest pockets of space become fabric for which a Wayuu homestead can set roots.  Paths that traverse through the mass appear as time passes, but should the family find that leaving this

niche is necessary, the land will dissolve their paths, an exhibition of the cyclical nature of life and living. 

When drought brings the land and its creature to submission, vegetation becomes scarce in some areas, these become civic plazas for the Wayuu.  As paths multiply over an expanse of the landscape, often a saturation of paths, created by the Guajiro, began to collect, also creating a plaza. When the frequency of use has grown, a community village has been naturally selected.  A civic arena for hospitals, schools, and other public structures can now directly compose a landscape.  Man-made architecture pulsates against a dry desert horizon, with cactus intermingling, a source of sustenance and building material.

Wayuu pathways and Colombian pathways challenge one another, as both are derived differently. The city builds with a heavy hand, unearthing anything to lay a straight path to some other industrial center.  These pieces of infrastructure fight the landscape and disregard a natural intent.  Pathways used by the Wayuu, are built by use and frequency of use only, moving in a serpentine way to avoid brush and cactus, but finding the most direct way to a place.

One path must synergize with others.  The Wayuu have an impulse to engage in a modern world, as climatic changes have taken away their herds, and left women to trek for many hours each day to sell their textiles.  A new architectural relationship can unite both pathways at a commercial epicenter. This is symbolic of the two groups of people coming together.  The landscape uses vegetation as a changing threshold. The diversion of some paths from the consumer, create private pathways for the Wayuu.  This will be a way for the outsiders and insiders to give to each other, while defining inherent and necessary differences. Buildings and the landscape can unify along a threshold, defining usable places for sale and cultural exhibition.

Ten Principles of Ecological Design.

I.                    Pathways and places should be derived from the landscape, not on top of it.

II.                  The interchange between paths create interstitial spaces that should be used to house infrastructures and social gathering

III.                Areas of growth and sacred spaces should be in close proximity for the well being of the community

IV.                In order to protect the ecosystem, harvesting of building materials should be done through moderation, selection of plants should be singular and far apart

V.                  Where permanent architectures are created, thermal properties should be utilized. Free resources like the sun, the wind, and all natural forces should be used in each new structure

VI.                A semi-nomadic life requires that material components come together with ease and come apart without creating waste

VII.              Rain water, a central determinant of everyday living, should be incorporated in the weaving of networks

VIII.            Commercial infrastructures should emphasize weaving as an industry.

IX.                The creation of a communal eco-garden, is

X.                  All the public venues should offset their surplus of energy to the surrounding Rancherias.

CHINCHORRO HOUSE: Architecture Studio

This blog is one of several student-run sites dedicated to helping the Wayuu to extend their heritage and bridge into the new world. 

Research, Concept, and Action

The Wayuu represent an all too common tale of a rich culture that is slowly being lost.  The challenge of this group identifying itself in a modern and solipsistic world with oral history alone is impossible.  The ever-changing nature of the media and quick distribution of products forces things like industry to disrupt procedure and practices that have been in place for hundreds if not thousands of years.  

How is it that identity will articulate structure?  How will it find a life beyond exile?

The creation of a masterplan will be along the first steps taken to think about how heritage can be maintained for an indigenous population that is bridging into new means of living.

CACTUS, COTTON, AND WOMAN AS CHIEF

CACTUS

STENOCEREUS GRISEUS, 'DAGGER CACTUS", Established itself as a primary contributor to many aspects of life for the Wayuu.  During its early stages of growth, the robust cactus is called 'yosu'.  During this period the plant is typical used for sustenance and living fences for cattle.

After many years, 'xylem' has hardened renaming the cactus 'yotojoro'. The cactus can be used as material for the building of family homes, social enramadas, a kitchen, and other buildings that make up an individual family's rancheria.  

The production of usable materials involves the skinning of the cactus, removing each of its ribs to expose the inner core of the cactus.  The larger components are saved as columns, branches as cross-bracing, and some larger cores are cut into parts to compose the roof covering.

COTTON

For hundreds of years, weaving has played an integral role in the lives of the Wayuu.  Today, the Wayuu receive much of their cotton from manufactures.  However, for many years the Wayuu cultivated their own cotton, providing an ideal material to build important structures called Chinchorros.  Each component are similar to hammock, but each have a lineage of their own, that extend to the cyclical nature of life.

Weaving is a practice that is assumed primarily by women of each clan, a way to present identity through making and presentation.  Each week woman, now, make a long journey to nearby cities to sell their wares, making cotton the primary provider industry and economy.

Wale'Keru

The Wayuu people believe to have inherited their ability to weave from Wale’Keru, the spinning spider. Wale’Keru lost her mother when she was very young. Her father worked all day and left her home under the surveillance of his sisters. Wale’Keru’s aunts mistreated her and exploited her for domestic tasks. One day, Wale’Keru’s father woke up and found a beautifully woven cloth by his chinchorro. When he asked who had woven that cloth, his sisters told him they had.  This went on for several days. One night, Wale’Keru’s father found Wale’Keru weaving in her dwelling and realized she was the skillful weaver who had been leaving the beautiful clothes by his chinchorro. Ashamed that he had never paid attention to her, he hid from her the next day.  A little before dawn, he decided to talk to Wale’Keru and ask her for forgiveness. Perhaps he was too late, for Wale’Keru had turned into a spider and ran away from home, forever.

The legend does not explain how Wale’Keru was able to pass her weaving skills down to other women but the art of weaving has always been seen as practiced by women. Some describe the Wayuu as a society where the women do all the work and the men, nothing. The economics of this culture focus on the art of weaving. Mochilas, Chinchorros, Susus and Mantas, the most renown woven artifacts of La Guajira, provide largely to the economics of the Wayuu people and women are in charge of that commerce, within and outside of La Guajira.

kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/.../umi-ku-2665_1.pdf

WEAVING AND STRUCTURE

The articulation of the weave's structure reaches the surface of any construction.  Everything that is constructed in Wayuu culture involves weaving in one way or another.

Waddle and Daub is a technique that involves the use of clay and interwoven structural elements that when combined create a strong structural wall.

Women select the grounds on which a house is to be built and the man of the family builds the home.  He weaves intersecting cactus branches between columns and subsequently begins adding clay or bricks of earth.

While the home built of heavily structured walls, the most prominent structure on the homestead is an enramada.  It consists several columns, made of cactus, with large openings in between that allow for chinchorros to be woven.  Each chinchorro takes nearly six months to make.  With each day that passes, the process of making is a reminder of the cyclical nature of life and aging.  The pattern in the cotton screen is the only wall in an otherwise open structure.  The structure is the epicenter of social exchange for the family living here.  The presentation of patterns evolving represent the family and their clan.  The continuing practice represent the nature of heritage passing on, through an oral history, realized through craft.

WOMAN AS CHIEF

The role of women has initiated itself in many practices for the Wayuu.  Acting as ambassadors to heritage, women often become the leaders of clans these days.  It is true that each woman from a young age learn how to create.

AT THE TIME OF HER FIRST MENSTRATION, THE GIRL IS SUBMITTED TO A TRANSITION RITUAL...SHE IS PLACED INTO A HIGH CHINCHORRO, STRETCHED CLOSE TO THE ROOF OF THE HOUSE...A RECLUSION PERIOD OF THREE OR MORE MONTHS BEGINS WHEN SHE LEARNS WOMEN'S TRADITIONS...SUCH AS WEAVING AND SPINNING.

Openly representing the importance of this tradition occurs often.  Since 1985, Wayuu's largest settlement in Colombia, Uribia, celebrated the coming of the first woman.  Among the many festivities.  A structure like the enramada is quickly set up to present the practice of weaving.  While each woman must know the weaving she does over the celebration will likely not get finished,  the presentation of practice is paramount to the success of this type of oral history.

As time continues to pass, the presence of men in the community is slowly moving away.  Roles typically taken up by men are now being done by women.  The role of men is purely agrarian in nature, so their presence also lacks in the classroom.  Elementary level education sees a small contingent of men.  Later, a room of college students has only 3% men.

kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/bitstream/1808/.../umi-ku-2665_1.pdf

Women are the symbolic and foundation of the Wayuu now and into the future.

THE WAYUU

THE WAYUU WORK TO MAINTAIN A HERITAGE THAT FINDS ROOTS THAT EXTEND HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE COLUMBUS SET SAIL. IN THE 1600s, WHEN THE SPANISH BEGAN A CONQUEST FOR GOLD AND RELIGIOUS TRANSCENDENCE, THE WESTERN WORLD WOULD COME INTO CONTACT WITH A GROUP OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE WITHOUT A NAME. 

THE FRIAR PEDRO SIMON BEGAN IDENTIFYING ALL INDIGENOUS PEOPLE LIVING NORTH OF THE RIVER DE HACHA AS ‘GUAJIRO’, A NAME WHICH STUCK, BECOMING THE TITLE OF THIS REGION OF SOUTH AMERICA.   YEARS LATER, THE MAN E’IRUKUU, OR CLANS, STARTED DESCRIBING THEMSELVES BY THE NAME WAYUU, A WORLD THAT SIMPLY MEANT PERSON.

HARKER, Santiago. Wayuu. Botoga, Colombia: Villegas Editores, 1998.