Sustainability

This house was designed for a couple of university professors without children. It is located on the edge of a lake, in Osório, a city in Rio Grande do Sul, in the extreme south of Brazil.

A 1950s row house in the city center of Hasselt is due for a new chapter. Potteries were demolished to make place for a new volume. A new extension with a better relationship to the deep backyard. The existing main volume was completely stripped and allowed to benefit from the new vista of the garden.

The concept of sustainability emerged at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in Stockholm in 1972 and was coined by Norwegian Gro Brundtland in the report “Our Common Future” (1987). According to this definition, the sustainable use of natural resources should “meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” However, despite the urgency of the concept and the constant evolution it has undergone over time, its application is often restricted to the controlled use of natural resources and the preservation of wildlife. In other words, it treats the situation from the perspective of “man versus nature,” as a dichotomous view, with the loss of a holistic perspective.

In the informal neighborhood of San Luis, a community-built project has emerged, showcasing the power of collaboration and innovation. The project is an inhabitable prototype designed to harvest fog water and promote urban agriculture practices in the informal environments of Colombia. The project was made possible through the collaborative effort of Alsar-Atelier, Oscar Zamora, Caesar Salomon, the Colombian Society of Architects, and the participation of local community members.