Walirumana Ethno Educational Center

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

WALIRUMANA ETHNO EDUCATIONAL CENTER

Salba

ARCHITECTS
Salba

LAND CONSTRUCTION CONSULTANT
TierraTEC

MANUFACTURERS
Terratec

BUILDER
SyC Construcciones Livianas

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Juan Salamanca Balen

CLIENT
Proyecto Guajira (NGO)

AREA
3122 ft²

YEAR
2020

LOCATION
Uribia, Colombia

CATAGORY
Other Facilities, Community Center

Walirumana Ethno Educational and Entrepreneurship Center is located 20 kilometers north of Uribia, established on the side of the road that leads to Puerto Colombia, in the department of La Guajira.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

The socio-environmental conditions in which many of these Wayuu communities live are complex. The desert that extends throughout this region to Venezuelan territory is a determining factor that has impeded the normal development of this native culture.

The difficulty to generate an economy of production and consumption, the lack of infrastructure to communicate and provide basic services, added to other factors, has generated very difficult living conditions.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

The ethnoeducation and entrepreneurship centers materialize the three pillars of the foundation in charge of the project, Proyecto Guajira.

Education, development, and basic social assistance are essential to generate a real change, and under this premise, an architecture model is proposed that aims to impact various communities in the upper Guajira by providing adequate space for these activities.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

The flexibility of the space is designed so that the center can operate at different times with a varied audience.

The revolving doors at the ends and in the center of the building allow the interior space to be adapted to a particular use.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

First, by keeping all the modules closed, a (1) classroom for 50 students and an auxiliary room with a capacity of 12 is generated, which also serves as a library.

On the other hand, when the central modules are fully opened, this main space is linked to the kitchen, and the drinking fountain works as (2) a dining room.

In these two circumstances, the colored windows fall from the walls of guadua and become the desks for the students or dining room tables.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

Finally, when the kitchen module is closed, the entrepreneurship center starts working under the shade where locals can go to practice their craft in an open space.

Many of the elements present in the Wayuu collective memory materialize in the building. As in the local architecture, the school uses the earth as the main component but materialized in a different way, with blocks of compressed earth.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

This allows lattices to be generated in the walls to ventilate the interior space and design a typical Wayuu pattern.

The folding ceiling refers to the mountains that rise in the middle of the desert and are of great importance not only for being references in the landscape but also for their connotation in Wayuu cosmology.

Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
© Juan Salamanca Balen

Finally, the texture generated by the guadua on the walls of the main hall is a reinterpretation of the pattern visible in local constructions when the passage of time reveals the internal skeleton of the bahareque.


Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Plan


Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Elevation 01
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Elevation 02
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Section


Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Axonometría 01
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Axonometría 02
Walirumana Ethno Educational Center
Axonometría 03