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TIBÁ rquitectos
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SÃO TOMÉ AND PRÍNCIPE


ECONEIGHBOURHOOD MUQUINQUIM 

Lobata, São Tomé and Príncipe. 2012

This project was funded by the UN to build affordable housing in the village of Lobata, on the island of São Tomé and Príncipe. The TIBÁ team was called in by Baixo Impacto Architects to introduce the techniques of cascaje, adobe and wattle and daub. Bricklayers and carpenters from the region were trained for ten days. Fortunately, the eco-technologies were strongly embraced by the local builders.

Testing the earth begins to define the mixture for the adobes.


Production of adobes, made with mud, water and a lot of straw. The island sand is dredged from the bottom of the sea or the beach, an expensive product with serious environmental impact, for this reason we discarded its use. Horse manure that is also used in the mix was hard to find, there are only about 60 horses isolated around the whole country.



Two local bamboo guys were also present at the training sessions, previously coached during an internship in China.

A simple earth building technique is wattle and daub. This was part the training. On the island there are no current techniques of building with earth.





Example of a traditional house with tropical habitat colors.


The islands jungles are abundant in with top quality lumber; the houses of the locals are mainly of wooden planks. Those who have a larger budget buy cement blocks imported from Portugal. Building with earth was a total novelty.



Effective way for transporting water. The branches with leaves work to prevent the water from spilling.

The rustic Cascajes forms factory.

Classes are held in the forest using the first African Cascajes of the finest quality.




There was a point in which metal sheets could no longer be found on the island, the solution was to make the Cascaje form using only wood, an abundant material on the island.


The houses begin to rise. The perfect marriage of a Cascaje slab with adobe walls.