TRASHHOLD

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Team

TRASHHOLD

Tutors

Professor

Institution

Contributions

Chair of Architectural Design and Participation
Technical University of Munich

  • Conduct research on the port of Abomey-Calavi, considering the geographical and sociocultural aspects of the site. Design a structure that could provide support at the given site.

    • Secondary Research

    • Site Analysis

    • Synthesis and Ideation

    • Strategy Planning

    • Architectural Design

    • Material Study

    • Model Making


    Softwares:

    • ArchiCAD

    • Lumion

    • Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign

  • Through this assignment, I learned to craft interview questions and conduct interviews that would allow us to learn deeply about our end users’ experiences. Collaborating with my teammates with diverse backgrounds allowed for rich discussions and exchange of ideas.

Context

Summer 2023 | Bachelor’s Thesis Project

in collaboration with Petru Cucuta & Maria Milusheva

Barbara Schudok, Dr. Ines Dantas, Luis Dura

Diébédo Francis Kéré

Design Research & Strategy, Architectural Designer, Model Making,

Site Analysis & Research

Research Methods:
- News articles
- Documentary and news videos
- Travel vlogs and blogs
- Organisations which had done prior work on site

Through our research, we discovered that the port is a central hub for the city of Abomey-Calavi and the water village of Ganvie. They are connected through the waters of Lake Nokoue, and the port serves as the threshold connecting the land and water. Touristic activities are bustling at the site, as well as a daily fish market, in which the people of Ganvie sell their catch and purchase produce from the sellers of Abomey-Calavi.

Due to these activities and the lack of proper waste management, trash piles up day after day on the site, creating an undesirably unhygienic condition that threatens the health of the people around it and creating an unattractive situation for the many visitors passing through the port. Complaints regarding trash are frequent, and efforts from the community to clean up the site are there, but no longer sufficient.

Here are some things we discovered…

Precedents, Inspirations & Prototyping

Sungai watch conducts daily river clean ups in Bali and sorts the collected trash to create recycled products.

Tip: Click on the images to learn more about the orgs!

Precious plastic is an international open-source digital commons project that provides the business model framework and hardware building guides for a sustainable plastic recycling business.

Robries designs and manufactures furniture made from recycled plastic waste, which they buy from local trash collectors. They are based in East Java.

So we tried recycling our own plastic waste…

Operational Strategy

To ensure sustainability of the Trashhold, we developed a business strategy that would involve local citizens and cultivate a circular economy.

The Trashhold would be run by a cooperative which consists of production workers and office workers that handles management, design, advertising and collaboration with brands.

Citizens of Abomey Calavi and Ganvie could hand in their trash in exchange for monetary compensation. The trash collected serve as raw materials for the production of goods that are either produced in collaboration with brands or to be sold back to the community.

Architectural Design

The Trashhold is divided into four main sections: the collection point, two processing lines and the space for non-production activities. The south side of the building, where the paper processing line is, is anchored on land, while the rest are on stilts. With part of the collection point being on the lakeside, Ganvie citizens who come to Abomey-Calavi by boat can efficiently hand in their trash.

Let’s take a peek into the processing lines!

The office and break room is elevated to allow for boat passage below it. Being located on the second level also allows oversight of the Trashhold and providing a change of scenery for production staff during their break. The water courtyard in between the processing line creates a cooler environment by means of water cooling while also allowing sunlight to reflect and diffuse light back into the processing lines. Niches in the walkways provide temporary refuge and accomodates storage and space for hand washing.

Material Study

We opted to use recycled plastic for the wall panels and louvers as they are quite durable and serves as a showcase of the possibilities of recycled products.

Models

  • 1:20 model of a section of the plastic processing line

  • 1:100 model of the structural system

Thank You!