Arno Schlueter, Philippe Block, Gerhard Schmitt, Rudi Bauer, Lea Ruefenacht, Marie Grob, Sofia Avramopoulou, Jimeno Fonseca, Prageeth Jayathissa, David Lopez, Marcel Aubert, Tomasa Mendez E., Marta Domenech, Arno Schlueter, Philippe block, Gerhard Schmitt, Rudi Bauer, Lea Ruefenacht, , Tomasa Mendez E., Marta Domenech, Manuel Moreno, Fabian amaya, Ricardo Vives, Andres Guzman, Guisselle Garcia, Antonio Bula, Augusto Sisa, Daniel Soto, Luis Villadiego, Lasidez Ripoll, Guardo Polo, Victor Cantillo, Pedro Otero, Daniela Cohen
Collaborators: ETH Z and the Universidad del Norte, Diego Ceresuela-Weismann (Coordinator), Are Carlsen and Gregory Alonso (Photographers)
Urban-Think Tank’s EDA ART School was developed in collaboration with an international network of partners such as Universidad del Norte (Uni-Norte). The building locally is called “Fábrica de Cultura” or Cultural Factory because it provides an Art & Craft School for teaching young people the creative arts and popular traditions for Barranquilla’s Carnival.
The Art School is operated by the municipality, the facility offers cultural education, in music, dance, sculpture, dress making, painting poetry, theatre, food production, digital film and audio techniques, to all residents but especially to the popular Barrio Abajo in Barranquilla.
The low-cost design, which utilises local materials and processes of prefabrication, adopts open building principles to establish a creative framework that can be modified and reprogrammed by users over time.The low-cost design, which utilises local materials and processes of prefabrication, adopts open building principles to establish a creative framework that can be modified and reprogrammed by users over time.
The aim of the project was to develop a flexible building prototype for Art and to create a construction system and building that can be easily replicated throughout the Latin America region.
UTT worked close with engineers from the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, as well as experts in sustainable building technology from the Chair of Architecture and Building systems at ETH Zurich
The Fabrica de Cultura: BAQ project was sponsored by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), and coordinated by the Inter-American Development Bank as part of the Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative.
In September 2016, the project was recognized with an international Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and in 2024 was shortlisted for the MCHAP award in Chicago.
