Rey
Anthony H. Chiu
TAGBILARAN CITY,
July 13 (PIA) --- In an effort to make good use of discarded polyethylene
terepthalate (PET) and glass rum bottles, an Estonian architect used about
7,100 of them to build a community center that would be a play hall for kids
and meeting venue for the adults of Talisay in Anda, Bohol.
The main idea behind the design is to take the local, traditional
building culture as an inspiration and give it a fresh and playful twist
through contemporary architectural design, said Estonian Hanna Lakk who volunteered
to create the 15 by 17.5 meter AndaKidz Community Center.
The materials that are usually seen as the building materials of
the poor are presented in a way that will emphasize the potential and raise
their status, Laak who meant bamboo, coconut lumber and nipa fronds.
The form of the building is borrowed from the traditional nipa
hut, the large roof covering the building is built from bamboo poles and
covered in thatched nipa, using the traditional sloping gradient that assures
good drainage to keep the roof last longer.
The building, under the roof from where all the function is
located, is made out of concrete framework filled with eco bricks.
By eco-bricks, architect designer means a pet bottle filled with
river sand. These are piled and set by a good mortar filling, to which experts
claim is several times stronger than concrete hollow blocks.
By using PET bottles over brick, they solve costs problems, and
PET plastic bottles are non brittle thus absorbs shcok loads without failure,
Bio climatic, re-usable, thus green construction as the bottles can survive for
hundreds of years, he explained.
Estonian non profit organization, ANDAKIDZ built the community
centre between August 2014 and January 2015 for the belief that Anda needs an
indoor play and learning centre that can be used by children of all ages when
they are not in school; a place to make crafts, paint and draw, read books,
play games, enjoy musical instruments, watch educational programs, practice
singing/dancing, hold events, said Robin Gurney, among the prime movers of the
organization in Anda.
When the kids are not using it the adults can take advantage of
the space for various community projects and meetings.
"We used plastic bottles filled with sand as "bricks", old tires for furniture, bottle caps for decoration - wherever possible we reused and recycled waste materials from the area and combined them with local resources such as nipa leaves, coconut wood and bamboo," he said.
For fillings, he said they got the sand from various locations
along Linawan and Badiang rivers which, in some locations, there is a problem
of flooding at high tide.
By removing the sand we help reduce the flooding issue and get
free resource for the building.
With pet bottle walls, the construction took 5632 Coke, Sprite and
Fanta pet bottles and 2100 clear Tanduay and Emperador rhum bottles, Gurney
said.
The result is a building with thick bottle walls, clear glass
bottles as windows and an interspacing of bamboo holes for ventilation, the
interior so wide but contrasting with the light materials in the roof,
affording perfect ventilation.
The building, which has withstood Ruby and Senyang storms, is also
eyed now as a community evacuation center, said Virgilio Mainit, whose family donated
the lot for the building. (rmn/rac/PIA-7/Bohol)