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Xingu Canopies
Xingu Canopies.
The recent history of Brazil's indigenous peoples has been marked by brutality, slavery, violence, disease, and genocide. When the first European colonizers arrived in 1500, what is now Brazil was inhabited by roughly 11 million indigenous people, living in approximately 2,000 tribes. After the first century of contact, 90% of the population had been exterminated, mainly by diseases brought by the European colonizers, such as influenza, measles, and smallpox. In the centuries that followed, thousands more died, enslaved. Today, due to political and economic circumstances, Brazil's indigenous cultures struggle to survive and fight daily for the preservation of their territories.
In an effort to ease the emergency situations facing some Brazilian indigenous communities, the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) carries out important proactive work developing integrated solutions for social, environmental, and cultural heritage issues in Brazil.
It was through these efforts that we were called on to propose a low-cost, replicable solution that could be locally built, for flexible spaces in the Xingu Indigenous Park. The main goal of these structures is to help sustain local indigenous culture and to accommodate activities that complement existing life in the villages. The first of the three sites where the project was implemented is the new Kisêdjê Village. The tribe's relocation and the construction of the new village, now situated closer to the center of the Xingu Indigenous Park, was vital to safeguarding the health of its residents, who are fleeing the diseases and harmful effects caused by the indiscriminate use of agrochemicals sprayed on the soybean plantations surrounding the park.
The new village, built around a generous, circular shared void, is surrounded by ocas — traditional indigenous structures built mostly of wood and straw. With small variations in scale, the ocas form the village's only existing building typology. These structures have an interesting formal character: externally symmetrical, pierced by two openings. Inside, in a quite dense atmosphere, the oca has no partitions at all; its functional organization occurs solely through different gradations of shadow — the further into the oca one goes, the darker and more private the space becomes, and vice versa.
It is within this context that the project is situated, and as a response to it, it does not seek to replicate local culture but rather to create a dialogue through distinction. It thus takes shape as a new element in the landscape, one that, through its own constructive difference, emphasizes and reveals the richness of the local indigenous culture, drawing formally closer to the existing structures through scale.
To build these spaces, a flexible system was designed using locally manufactured timber. Eight main pieces are combined to allow a simple structural arrangement; all assembled using bolts and threaded rods, enabling future disassembly, given the mobility of indigenous peoples. The enclosures, internal partitioning, and functions assigned to the new structure are configured according to the wishes of each village.
The simplicity of the project stems not only from cost considerations but also from the impossibility of any contact with the construction site during the building process. To make the execution of the roofs possible, models were sent to the site and instructional drawings were produced to easily convey the construction process.
Broadly speaking, the roofs aim to mark out a shaded space and provide an atmospheric and functional condition that complements what already exists in each village, with the sole purpose of creating situations that strengthen local cultural vitality.
Author: Gustavo Utrabo
Team: Beatriz Rocha,
Consultant:
Structure - Ita Construtora
Build area: 368,25 m2
Photos: Pedro Kok (colors) Gustavo Utrabo (Black and White)