SPACE August 2024 (No. 681)
Exterior views of La Balsanera (2023, left) and Fisherman’s Shelter (El Refugio del Pescador, 2020, right) ©Francesco Russo
interview Juan Carlos Bamba Vicente × Kim Bokyoung
Natura Futura Arquitectura (principal, José Fernando Gómez), based in Babahoyo, a small city in Ecuador, and architect Juan Carlos Bamba Vicente, based in Madrid, Spain, have worked on several floating house projects. Their attempts to restore local artisanal techniques and create a sustainable community stem from their deep connections to the Babahoyo, where they were born, studied, and continue to reside. With the climate crisis causing coastlines to shift, the floating house system is drawing attention as a viable way of coexisting with water and the encroaching sea levels. SPACE spoke to them about their community-focused floating house projects.
Aerial view of the area around the Babahoyo River ©Francesco Russo
Kim Bokyoung (Kim): Both Fisherman’s Shelter (El Refugio del Pescador, 2020) and La Balsanera (2023) are series of productive floating houses in the small city of Babahoyo, where Natura Futura Arquitectura (covered in SPACE No. 636) is based.
Juan Carlos Bamba Vicente (Bamba): Fisherman’s Shelter is a project that renovated the floating house of Don Teodoro, a canoe repairman and fisherman. His floating house, made of balsa wood, was in danger of collapsing more than 35 years after he inherited it from his father. To address this problem, we retained the existing platform and structural columns, but replaced the walls, roof and floating system with modern technology developed from traditional techniques.
La Balsanera is a floating house project for Don Carlos, Doña Teresa, and their youngest son. The family has made a living on the Babahoyo River for more than 30 years, with Carlos repairing canoes and Teresa cooking and selling traditional food. Due to the house’s fragile condition, the existing platform and structure could not be reused, and only the functionality and size of the house were retained. If the house had been left unrepaired, the family would have been at significant risk from the next El Niño.
To enhance the productivity of the living space, we employed a participatory design process. Surveys and interviews were conducted with the family, and an inventory of existing items of furniture and their uses was made to identify ways to utilise existing materials and furnishings while addressing the family’s needs. Used furniture was repaired and restored to ensure longevity, and some of the unused materials — such as bamboo stalks and traditional wood — were employed in an exhibition at the Sharjah Architecture Triennial 2023 (covered in SPACE No.677).
Kim: Recently, due to the climate crisis, sea levels are rising and coastlines are shifting, meaning floating house systems are gaining attention. How did you embark on the series of floating houses in the Babahoyo River?
Bamba: There has already been much research about the floating houses run by independent professionals from different areas. But the floating houses series comes from a personal interest from José Fernando Gómez, who has lived his entire life in Babahoyo. The memory of the importance of the floating house has been part of the core development of the city, a city that used to be strongly connected with the river but has seen that connection lost over the years. The fact of their disappearance led to a breaking point and a decision to do something about it. That is how the fisherman’s shelter project emerged in the first instance, followed by the other projects.
Platform of La Balsanera ©Francesco Russo
La Balsanera, platform used as a restaurant ©Francesco Russo
Kim: When and how did the floating community by Babahoyo River, where your projects are located, get formed?
Bamba: The floating houses by Babahoyo River have pre-Hispanic origins and many similar floating structures were also found in other regions of Ecuador. The pre-Hispanic Ecuador (Manteño-Huancavilca, one of the cultures of pre-Hispanic Ecuador) was a formidable maritime culture, and its river and ocean formed an important economic and trading hub. Babahoyo’s housing boats (Las casas flotantes de Babahoyo) have been recognised by Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism as a tourist attraction in 2004, and the techniques for building these floating houses were designated as an intangible heritage of Ecuador in 2010.
While there were about 150 floating structures at Babahoyo in 1995, the number decreased to 50 in 2014 and 22 in 2018, and the current floating housing community at Babahoyo is the last of its kind. Today, however, Babahoyo’s floating houses are associated with poverty. They have an unstable structure and lack basic services such as sanitation, drinking water and electricity. In response to this, the city government deemed the houses hazardous and decided to demolish these floating houses and relocate their inhabitants to the outskirts and the surrounding areas near the city. However, this move will depreciate the tourism resource and cultural value of Babahoyo’s floating houses. Also, this is not what the inhabitants of this floating housing community want.
After relocating and detaching the inhabitants of the floating houses from their previous productive lives, there were no follow-ups to help them adjust into their new socioeconomic roles.▼1 To address this, the project aimed to design a floating house that is also productive.
Kim: While restoring and extending two aged floating houses, you actively incorporated local artisanry in line with the previous projects where you collaborated with Natura Futura Arquitectura.
Bamba: Before we actually use new technologies and materials, we do a preliminary reading of the context, techniques, user desires, and materials, and afterwards we decide which techniques should be kept as they were and which ones should be rethought for more durability and efficiency.
For example, the wooden lattice used at the doors, the upper storage areas in the projects, and the ensembling features of the main truss have been used for many floating houses for generations and we keep using them. In both projects, we retained the traditional truss structure and overhead storage, but increased the slope and height of the roof to allow for natural ventilation at the top of the walls. The walls also evolved and adapted the traditional Ecuadorian window form of chazas, where the timber is placed at an angle to make it waterproof. We made the chazas make up the entire exterior wall to enhance privacy and security.
On the other hand, traditional houses use balsa wood in their floating system, but since this solution was vulnerable in heavy winter seasons, we decided to strengthen the main structure of the base platform and replace the balsa wood with floating tanks.
Aerial view drawing of floating houses in the Babahoyo River area
Kim: How did you address the lack of basic infrastructure for living such as sanitation, electricity, and drinking water in the floating houses?
Bamba: Solar-powered cells were used to resolve the lack of electricity. Water filters were used to clean the water from the river and reuse it for washing, cleaning and cooking, and afterwards this used water was cleaned before being returned to the river. In terms of hygiene, we decided to work with Interris Foundation (Fundación In Terris)▼2, who provided a dry toilets solution to make the project as sustainable as possible.
Kim: Considering the different requirements between building a house on land and on water, what are some of the important things that you paid attention?
Bamba: The main difference is that the foundation is a floating platform instead of a concrete basement. We had to consider the types of solid trash that can come down through the river, so that the structure on the right side of the platform needed to withstand massive objects that could damage the house. When designing the floating house, we also had to factor in the changes in the river’s tides.
With the help of the local users, we were able to take into account the variations in the tides so that families were able to adapt with the changes—going up and closer to the shore in the morning; going down and farther from the shore in the afternoon. The bridge that adapts to the river’s fluctuations due to high and low tides, also can withstand harsh winter weather.
Exterior view of Fisherman’s Shelter
Interior view of Fisherman’s Shelter
Kim: One of the goals of the projects was to restore connectivity between the city and the river.
Bamba: We should note that the idea of city connection is always thought about in terms of solid ground, but for us the river is also a physical extension of the city. The two houses are close to one of the main pedestrian bridges which connect Babahoyo city with El Salto town, enhancing the visual and physical connection with the city, river and heritage.
On the rear side of the houses, small and flexible bridges were set to connect the houses with the city. In this case, the bridge, incorporating the canoe fixing platform, serves as a resting spot for other fishermen or for people that work in the river. It’s an important element that connects the floating house to the Babahoyo city and keeps communication flowing.
In La Balsanera, we proposed the extension of 2m on each side of the current platform (6×7m) to enhance the productive environments of the Mayorga family’s small food business.
Moreover, these areas do not only have a productive function. People in Babahoyo are really social, so this expansion has also proved to be a social space for the neighbourhood, not just for the family.
Kim: It seems that you expanded the floating house series to the Floating Greenhouse (El Huerto Flotante, 2023) at Samborondón, Guayas, Ecuador, which is a little distance away from Babahoyo. This greenhouse floats on water only when there is a flood. What kind of structure and technique was used to realise this house?
Bamba: Samborondón, located in Guayas province on the coast of Ecuador, is an agricultural region with a rural population of approximately 19,000 inhabitants. Despite its high participation in the agricultural economy of the province of Guayas, much of the land is flooded during the winter months, leaving residents in complete isolation and making food production difficult. Therefore, unsatisfied basic needs are a constant in the sector’s precincts. In response, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has implemented a nature-based solutions (NBS) project for several areas of Samborondón that are suffering from climate change exposure. As part of the NBS project, the floating garden was implemented to allow people to plant and harvest food even when the land is flooded.
The floating platform uses the same technique as the other projects. The only difference is that this structure is attached to a concrete column to avoid the current moving it away during the winter season. Also, since this project is a separate infrastructure for the family, not a space to inhabit, the external features are different. We use a plastic membrane to cover the project in order to preserve the necessary heat for plants on the inside of the little building.
This project is a case study in how to expand the range of floating solutions beyond the home, improving the habitability of flood-prone communities by including food production. This case study shows us that this is achieved through the active participation of international organisations, communities, businesses and professionals that ensure the valorisation of local artisanal techniques and the potential to generate resilient and sustainable communities in the face of impending climate change.
Interior view of the Floating Greenhouse (El Huerto Flotante, 2023)
Kim: What is the difference between Natura Futura Arquitecturea’s floating house projects in Babahoyo and other floating house projects?
Bamba: As far as we know, most floating projects were stilt house settlements; they can not adapt if the sea level increases. We would say that what makes the Babahoyo floating community unique is that they actually float, they never stay at the same level, and they can actually navigate and move from site to site if needed.
Kim: Do you think that the floating system proposed by you and Natura Futura Arquitectura can be expanded to become a general solution for cities facing risk of submerging due to the climate crisis?
Bamba: It is a solution for it in our context, so far. Although these projects do not pretend to be a solution for every community in flooded areas, later it could become a modular global technique with its own area of study. What’s important is that it is always necessary to form an understanding of the context to be sure that the floating solution adapts to the people, tradition, techniques and socio-cultural context of the new site. Since our context demands it, we are currently working on expanding the floating habitable systems into an equipment facility for floating communities which may help them to strengthen their sense of belonging.
Exterior view of the Floating Greenhouse
1. Doménica Inés Noboa Ramos, Análisis de las casas flotantes sobre el río Babahoyo, Universidad Central del Ecuador (Quito) bachelor’s thesis, 2018.
2. Interris Foundation is a non-profit organisation, where they believe that without a countryside there is no city. They promote Sustainable Rural Development by creating integral opportunities through agroecology and ecological sanitation.
You can see more information on the SPACE No. August (2024).
Juan Carlos Bamba Vicente
Juan Carlos Bamba Vicente is an architect based in Madrid, Spain. He graduated from the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Seville and received a doctorate in advanced architectural projects from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. He is currently a professor of architectural projects and director of the VIS Guayaquil Laboratory research group of the faculty of architecture and design of the Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil. He has developed projects such as the Fisherman’s Shelter with Natura Futura Arquitectura and was nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize and was a finalist at BIAU 2022.
Natura Futura Arquitectura
Natura Futura Arquitectura, based in Babahoyo, Ecuador, is an architectural practice founded by José Fernando Gómez in 2014. Natura Futura Arquitectura considers sensitive issues around Latin American cities and architecture and employs an approach of architectural exploration that works in search of solutions through continuous experimentation and research. They respond to the urgent need for architecture to begin to have its own presence starting with local materialities, techniques and traditions within territories in peripheral cities of the metropolises. Also, generating a sustainable and responsible habitat through an architecture that opens up to the possibilities of facing its environment, which promotes the dignity of its inhabitants who tend to be made invisible in their own territories.
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