Nuove applicazioni per le unità abitative in emergenza: tecnologie e tecniche della tradizione costruttiva andina amazonica

This work reports the result of a research activity conducted in Bolivia in the year 2020, in synergy between Bolivian Polytechnic University School "Josè Maria Nunez del Prado", University of Naples Federico II and Pegaso Telematic University. In particular, the research had as its object the study of a housing unit suitable for coping with the floods that frequently afflict some Bolivian peasant populations. During the research, much attention was initially paid to the historical, political, socio-economic aspects and to the cultural and traditional characteristics of the ethnic groups that make up the population of Bolivia; subsequently, the morphology and hydrography of the Bolivian territory were examined, as well as the climate, the trend of rainfall and the El Niño and La Niña phenomena that often cause floods with serious risks for the populations, especially rural ones. Having completed these first two phases of the research, the authors moved on to the study of the traditional construction characteristics of rural architecture, paying particular attention to the basic construction materials used in the peasant areas of Bolivia, in particular to raw earth and bamboo, as well as the principles and rules that regulate the construction of rural housing in Bolivia. For rural architecture, the traditional Pawichi house and the traditional dwellings of the indigenous Chiquitana population were examined in detail. Only after having acquired all these important aspects, the research became interested in the design of a new rural house which, respecting Bolivian cultural traditions, would be able to cope with floods and reduce the risks associated with them. In the design of this new emergency housing unit, the authors focused their attention not only on the compositional and functional aspects of the housing unit, but also on the constructive aspects by designing new structural elements such as the pillars made with five bamboo canes suitably linked together. with knots of the Andean construction tradition. The composition of the housing unit proposed by the authors is governed by a basic 4x4 module that can be full, or delimited by infill and window frames, or empty, or without surrounding infill elements to allow the creation of the traditional place for socialization, the Punilla. Never as in this case have, I been particularly happy with the invitation formulated by the authors, and in particular by the young researchers, Francesca Volpe and Emanuele La Mantia, to present their work. In fact, I was able to see the procedural quality of the research and the intelligent design procedure that led to the definition of a housing prototype of great interest for the Andean populations.