MUSOCO

H2Os

Tamassociati Architect Raul Pantaleo lauching of the H2OS Eco-house construction site

“Hi, everybody, I would like to make a few comments on the occasion of the opening of our H2OS project.

First of all I wish to thank MUSOCO Onlus for their welcoming hospitality and for the nice people they have given us the chance to meet. I would also like to thank APS Sunugal and the Keur Bakar village chief of Diahite and all the other Senegalese for the friendship they have shown to us in this journey. I will now sum things up.

THE ARCHITECTURAL PROJECT

I am glad that the construction site survey has provided excellent results, in my view the route we have taken together has generated a mature, intelligent project and, most of all, EXTREMELY INNOVATIVE.

After some technical challenges, I am now certain that what we are doing will be an incentive for further developments. In the next few days we will make some minor adjustments, but we may say the project is complete as it is.

CONSTRUCTION SITE

MUSOCO Onlus has engaged a very competent team of technicians who work well together. This team has already sketched the building plans, and in the next few days the foundations will be laid.

Our general foreman, who has already supervised the execution of the bricks, will report daily on the quality of the work, as well as train the village boys.

Sincerely,

Raul Pantaleo

Tamassociati

Community ecohouse site in Keur Bakar (Senegal) – April 2015

Pilot project for an eco-village to be carried out in Senegal in the open source fashion

Promoter: Sunugal Association
Coordinators: MUSOCO ONLUS (Mutuality, Solidarity and Cooperation – Venice)
Local partner: USE (Union pour la Solidarité et l'Entraide – Senegal)
Preliminary plan of the project: TAMASSOCIATI, Francesco Stefinglongo, Do Community
Where: Village Keur Bacar, an agricultural area 200kms south of Dakar, 350 inhabitants, near Natural Park of Sine Saloum delta (Senegal)

H2OS pieghevole ITA (1.7 MB)

(816.5 KB)

H2OS is a co-development experiment promoted by Senegalese immigrants in the Venice area created to spread information about how to implement and construct employing local building material and techniques in compliance with the rural Saharan natural environment. In fact, remittances from many immigrants are spent in their country of origin to buy houses for themselves and their families. The project relies on ancient knowlege such as how to harvest rain water or how to ventilate rooms while incorporating up to date technologies for energy production from renewable sources. The concept of an eco-house prototype in a Senegalese village was realized with the help of TAMASSOCIATI, promoters of participatory planning. As such, Senegale immigrants were involved in the planning to ensure that the building would meet their needs. This approach is supported by associations in the Venice area including MUSOCO ONLUS, the coordinator, and the

long established Senegalese non profit organization Union pour la Solidarité et l'E'ntraide. Thanks to the implementation of its inhabitants and local authorities, the project was located in Keur Bakar Diahité, a village 200 kms South of Dakar in the Fatik region close to the natural park of Sine Saloum.

H2OS is to become an eco-village prototype tailored to technical, economical, self-sufficient agricultural capacities of local communities. The experimental model will promote community and sustainability.

Since Jannuary 2015, our partnership of Italian promoters and H2OS Senegalese has been preparing the opening of the construction site. For two years prior, the Senegalese have been promoting the Eco-Community House in Keur Bakar with a number of activities to strengthen cohesion among the villagers. More recently we have formed a cooperative of young villagers lead by the village chief, we have constructed three rooms to host work surveyors and by mid-April we had made half of

the bricks required for the Eco-house walls. The village, the school and the local building firms have been fostering exchange. The brick press we purchased will allow the cooperative to make various types of raw clay bricks both for the ECOHOUSE and as well as for future construction.

Fund raising for the ECOHOUSE prototype has borne fruit thanks to donations and to various promotional initiatives in the Venice area. We will now be able to complete the project by the end of 2015. The initial building will be the Civic Centre of the village and a research laboratory for sustainable techniques that includes a space for teaching and learning activities and an eco-info-point.

Our underlying philosophy is to promote communication between Senegalese immigrants in Europe and the Senegalese. In addition to encouraging important donations, our goal is to build capability and capacity of the local human resources. From a technical perspective, the completion of the prototype will demonstrate innovative ways for harvesting and using rain water and for producing electricity with solar panels, wind mills and dynamos activated by bicycle pedals. The goal is not only to provide enough information for our own future ECOVILLAGE, but to share results in an Open Source fashion as a model to be adapted and copied world wide.