Architecture at the Service of Humanity with Juan Salamanca Balen

Architecture at the Service of Humanity with Juan Salamanca Balen

Hello Juan, thank you for your time. It has been 4 years since you attended the course in Architecture for Humanity at YACademy. What happened since then in your life?

First of all, I would like to greet and thank the YACademy team for the opportunity to participate in this amazing experience. Without a doubt, the Architecture for Humanity course was an incredible experience, a source of inspiration to continue working for the most vulnerable populations. I come from a country with serious socio-environmental problems and the course provided me with very powerful tools to generate significant architecture in needy people. The course was a catalyst in my career to dedicate myself to putting my passion at the service of others.

After the course, I continued with more energy my work in vulnerable communities, exploring the acquired tools and new methodologies to achieve more sustainable projects. I continue working with entities and organizations in the formulation of impactful projects. I believe that, as architects, we have a great responsibility in society to face the different challenges that we have as humanity.

You were the lead architect of a notable project, the Walirumana Ethno Educational Center. Could you tell us more about it? What was its purpose and the inspiration behind it?

The Walirumana project is located in one of the most needy regions in all of Colombia, La Guajira. This place is inhabited by an ancestral ethnic group, the Wayuu. Unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances, these communities live in the midst of a social emergency that has its most critical point in deaths from child malnutrition.

The task was to create a place that reflected the three pillars: education, development, and basic assistance. The foundation promoting the project had to generate a radical change. With this premise, we wanted to generate a space that, with a good optimization of resources, would achieve these three pillars with great flexibility.

Our starting point in the design process was humanity itself, the ethnic group, and the environment they inhabit. Many of the elements of the Wayuu collective memory are materialized in the building, mainly the wisdom of a people that is reflected in the earth. In addition to being a sign of wealth and power, it is the place where their ancestors and, consequently, a large part of their memory rest.

As in local architecture, the ethno-educational center uses earth as its main component but materialized in a different way, in blocks of compressed earth. The folded roof refers to the mountains that rise in the desert and are of great importance, not only because they are references in the middle of the landscape, but also because of their connotation in Wayuu cosmology. The texture generated by the guadua on the walls of the main hall is a reinterpretation of the pattern that is visible in local constructions when the passage of time has revealed the internal skeleton of the bahareque, a technique used in most of the constructions.

The good conditions of interior comfort in the midst of this wild climate were achieved by great artisanal work of natural resources. The work in guadua on the dividing walls generates a draft that filters the intense wind in many months of the year, generating very pleasant conditions of internal comfort. Additionally, the BTC works excellently as a catalyst for internal temperature. During the day it gradually expels the cold captured at night.

We’re curious about the design process. What was the biggest challenge? Did you have to accept any compromises?

The biggest challenge when working with a community with such a specific culture so different from mine was to stop thinking like me and do it like they do. Absolutely everything is different, from the way we communicate, how they inhabit spaces, how they perceive the landscape and resources, human relations, etc. Architecture is an intervention that in these cases has to be done very delicately because, in a certain way, there is a risk of imposing and not proposing. I think that this dilemma - asking myself if I was the right person to do a project within an indigenous reservation - was one of the biggest challenges. In the end, when there is a prior process and mutual empathy, the project flows as it should.

Likewise, the good management of resources in a desert area with difficult access was fundamental. In this way, optimizing the foundation's resources to achieve the best result using the least amount of material and therefore the least amount of budget. At the same time, obtaining the necessary materials while seeking the least environmental impact was a challenge. 

The Walirumana Ethno Educational Center received several awards, winning the National Architecture Award in the Colombian Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism, earning the finalist position in the TerraFibra Award, and being nominated for the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize. How did such important achievements impact your work?

It has been very nice to see how the work has been recognized in different contexts. These recognitions have only made me commit even more to continue working with this mission that I have started. It has been more than anything an invitation to look for new methodologies and to continue training so that the impact is increasingly deeper and more sustainable. 

The project has a strong humanitarian value and goal, and you seem to believe in the power of architecture to help communities, which has an evident connection with the Architecture for Humanity course. Where does this interest come from? And how did you cultivate it during and after the course?

I think that, even before becoming an architect, it is important to understand my human reality. Since I was a child, I have always had a particular interest in humanitarian issues. I think that, because of the context in which I was born, where there are so many people in need, a particular sensitivity to helping others was cultivated. I had the opportunity to participate in several social projects in my country and to dedicate years to volunteering with vulnerable populations in other South American countries. These years undoubtedly guided my profession since I began studying architecture, always seeking that the projects to which I gave my time had some positive impact on society. “Those who do not live to serve, serve for little in this life.” A phrase from Pope Francis has been shaping my way of not only practicing my profession but also my way of living.

The course was a catalyst to direct my entire professional career toward service. Seeing the different global testimonies of people who have managed to transform society with architecture was a great impetus to continue dedicating myself to this. The conferences of Francis Kere and Tatiana Bilbao among many others were examples of how to practice architecture with total coherence to our global.

You’re also involved in the organization of workshops and construction days to help different communities. How do you achieve this goal through these initiatives and how crucial is it for young architects to consider the humanitarian impact of their projects?

I am convinced that the processes prior to and during a project are key to its success in these contexts. In this case, my practice has focused on traditional techniques such as earth construction and some processes with natural fibers. The social wealth hidden in these processes is part of that memory that should not disappear with the arrival of new technologies. In vulnerable populations, these techniques help the correct appropriation by the community in addition to all the benefits of environmental sustainability that they hide.

In this order of ideas, our projects are always built involving the community. Likewise, inviting others to learn about these techniques and in some way help in their construction helps us reduce the overall costs of the project. We have organized several construction days with different universities and organizations in Latin America that have agreed to co-create with us and the communities. It has been a very enriching experience for me, as well as for the community and the volunteers.