5. FC Advan in Ambonga





2016 
In Ambonga Madagascar

            The project provides a meeting place for a local football club in rural Madagascar. The school was funded with a minimal budget. The obstacles of working over distance, the different building and living culture as well as the language barriers were bridged with axonometric plans. The drawings are universally readable and serve as a step by step building instruction, similar to the instructions for the construction of model airplanes. All building materials come from the immediate vicinity, the bricks were stoved from local clay.


            «On the following day, we drive to the construction site. It is a long trip even though the highlands are not so many kilometers away, as the roads are in such poor condition that it takes us many hours. Built fewer than ten years ago by Chinese companies, the roads have become an impossible problem for drivers. All that is left of them are asphalt islands between stretches of hilly earth and large protrusions of rock. Titus drives his Peugeot very slowly over the big rocks. I take note of his driving style. Since then, I have been able to get over any terrain, no matter how rough, in any car.»


            «In Madagascar, bricks are fired locally and produced in every second highland village. The locals take the earth they live on and shape it into bricks. The air-dried bricks are then assembled in pyramidal sculptures with a cavity at the bottom, via which the entire pile is fired. These large stacks of bricks with clouds of smoke escaping from the sides are to be found all along the roads in Madagascar. Although they are just part of a production process, they are among the most poetic architectural entities I have seen.»