SIMON VELEZ - ARCHITECT MASTERING BAMBOOFor Colombian architect Simon Vélez (born 1949), botany has been
inextricable from architecture. His work has been significantly
determined by his country’s tropical resources, in particular its lush
vegetation and abundance of guadua bamboo--a common species throughout
the valleys of Colombia. Working in close collaboration with the
engineer–constructor Marcello Villegas, Vélez has devised bamboo
buildings that are extraordinary not only in appearance but also in
their structural simplicity, and in their suitability for scenarios in
which construction tools and resources are minimal. Vélez has so
successfully popularized guadua bamboo that today even his wealthiest
clients are commissioning luxury residences in this material formerly
associated with peasant dwellings. He has also successfully persuaded
numerous public administrations, town councils and businesses concerned
about the environmental impact of their activities to adopt and promote
guadua bamboo; he has designed bamboo buildings in Germany, France, the
United States, Brazil, Mexico, China, Jamaica, Colombia, Panama, Ecuador
and India. In this monograph, illustrated throughout by Deidi von
Schaewen’s photographs, author Pierre Frey guides us through a range of
works by Vélez, examining his construction methods--in bamboo, steel and
wood--as exemplifying a new kind of vernacular architecture. |
