Tentoonstellingen
Ghana; an organic experience
JOE OSAE ADDO an inno-native architect
Opening on December 16th, 16:30 pm by Adri Duivesteijn, alderman of the City of Almere.
Annemieke de Kler, guest curator
Immanuel Sirron Kakpor: design.
Joe Osae Addo
In this exhibition we focus on Ghana, and the way traditional organic materials and methods have been reintroduced in modern urban planning. Can these set examples for the New Town Almere? In the project Ghanascapes students of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture investigate these possibilities.
The architect Joe Addo was invited to select several of his projects, which make use of these materials and methods. These projects will we presented within the historical and cultural context of urban planning in Ghana. Comparisons are made with the New Town Teema, where western modern planning principles were used.
Addo’s architectural ideas and innovative views focus on the way traditional organic building methods infiltrate in strictly urban surroundings and the way public space is vitalized and regulated in order to function more efficiently in a social and economical way. Playing these themes, Addo will also show some of his own recent eco-housing designs. His passion for alternative materials and context derived solutions for architecture and product design will surely form an inspiring example for the Dutch public that franticly searches for sustainability in urban planning and architecture.
Addo’s key issues are eco-housing projects, affordable state housing projects, bamboo prefab systems and street improvement projects that describe his ‘inno-native’ approach.
Ghanascape
Ghanascapes aims to stimulate innovative thinking about architecture and landscape through an exchange between patterns of settlement in Ghana and Holland. The research in Ghana is focused on the registering- through mapping and measurement- the effects of the damming of the Volta River and the planned resettlement of villages that were created as a result of the Akosombo Dam.
A comparison can be acknowledged between the architect designed dwellings belonging to the re-settlement program and the self-organizing self-build initiatives of the unplanned dwellings. In situ mapping provided the students with firsthand experience and direct engagement with the social and spatial effects of the Dam project. This experience acts as a potential model to adapt and engage with Dutch spatial planning.
Upon return to Holland, the town of Almere was selected to act as a testing ground to apply the concepts absorbed in Ghana. In so doing, we aim to bring together two approaches to the study of built form which are usually considered in isolation: the political and the inhabited landscape.
For more information see student website: http://ghanascapes.wordpress.com/
The exhibition will be shown in Nubeke Foundation in Accra in 2012.
Partners:International New Town Institute, Almere, ArchiAfrika en FBW Architecten, Utrecht, Atelier Dutch, Almere, Academie voor Bouwkunst, Amsterdam, Prins Claus Fonds, Amsterdam, Stimuleringsfonds voor Architectuur, Rotterdam, , De Kunstlinie, Almere, Randijk Bamboe en Hoveniers, Leusden, CRH Claysolutions, Neer.