Diploma project of Hugon Kowalski "Let's talk about trash", photo courtesy of Hugon Kowalski.
Hugon Kowalski is the first Pole to win the Archiprix International / Hunter Douglas Award for best architectural graduation project worldwide. He designed a house and a work complex, projected for a garbage dump in India.
The project Let's talk about trash was founded at the University of Arts in Poznań under the direction of architect Robert Konieczny, and was based on the expansion of Mumbai's slums. Kowalski’s source of inspiration was an article entitled Mumbai Sell Its Legendary Slums, which described the situation of Dharavi, the largest slum in Asia. The century-old district in central Mumbai was sold by the city for $2.3 billion. Investors promised its inhabitants small apartments elsewhere.
Diploma project of Hugon Kowalski "Let's talk about trash", photo courtesy of Hugon Kowalski.
Hugon Kowalski offered a surprising solution: a building on the outskirts of the Deron landfill, 7 kilometres away from the slum. Every day there, thousands of people gather 6,000 tonnes of waste, processing and sorting through it. The architect decided to design housing and a work complex for its residents. The upper floors are divided into 5,820 units, the ground floor is open and undeveloped, used to deliver waste to be recycled and reused by residents.
Diploma project of Hugon Kowalski "Let's talk about trash", photo courtesy of Hugon Kowalski.
On the basement floor is bio-gas technology powered by waste and feces, which could become another source of income for the community. Streets around the building are 7 meters wide - a meeting place for social and commercial activity. As the architect explains,
I had to accept a completely different approach to common spaces and privacy. I wanted to create a structure cheap to construct, in which these people could settle, a suctructure that would not restrain them, whose functions they would be able to freely shape and change.
The Archiprix organization includes over 1,500 schools of architecture from around the world. Every two years since 2001, the universities submit one diploma project for the Archiprix International / Hunter Douglas Awards. In 2013, 296 works were selected, and 7 received awards.
Diploma project of Hugon Kowalski "Let's talk about trash", photo courtesy of Hugon Kowalski.
More about this project on www.bryla.pl
Edited by SW 12/06/2013