PROJECT PORTFOLIO
The Bihongora Library & Community Center
The Bihongora Library & Community Center is a partnership between an interdisciplinary group of Cal Poly Students, Journeyman International – a non-profit founded by a Cal Poly CM alumnus, and Empowering Villages, a humanitarian non-profit dedicated to holistic, sustainable community development.
The Alliance, a Foundation for Interdisciplinary Studies provided grant support to enable the team to travel to Rwanda to complete important site visits and studies to inform the project design and planning.
The team included Gabriela Ojalvo (ARCH 2019), Sarah Nelson (CM 2019), Elyssa Adams (ARCE 2019), and Nick Decker (ARCE 2019), and faculty advisors Tom Di Santo (ARCH) and Phil Barlow (CM).
The project vision is quite extensive and meets a variety of critical community infrastructure needs that aim to improve the quality of life for the rural community of Bihongora, Rwanda. The project includes a micro-industrial center that provides spaces for local small businesses to grow and thrive as well as a library and community center to promote literacy, provide educational programs, and create gathering space for people to come together.
The design followed the Living Building Challenge Imperative Checklist, which helps guide designers to a sustainable solution. The project was centered on interdisciplinary collaboration where architecture, architectural engineering, and construction management students were in constant collaborative discourse, which was the key to success for a visionary final design.
The project was launched in winter 2018, started construction in summer 2019, and is expected to be completed in summer 2020.
Below you can enjoy some of the outstanding work of these students, and their non-profit partners!
Check out some resources below:
Supporting Organizations
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
Journeyman International
Journeyman International is a non-proft humanitarian organization, pairing architecture students with real world projects in developing countries.
Journeyman International was founded by Cal Poly alumni Daniel Wiens. Journeyman International inspires designers to create projects that are socially and environmentally responsible while advocating for younger generations to make a difference. Through interdisciplinary collaboration between students, professionals, and organizations student thesis projects have the ability to become reality.
“Build what matters most”
ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION
Empowering Villages
Empowering Villages is passionate about holistic and sustainable community development.
The objective of the organization is to empower, train, and build up the people they work with. They hope to someday see Villages around the world become self-sufficient, peaceful, and innovative models of excellence. Empowering Villages provides opportunities in employment, education, and healthy built environments by implementing renewable energy technologies and sustainable infrastructure in rural areas of the developing world. They care about capacity-building and encouraging healthy livelihood for all. Their educational programs bring libraries and learning centers to families who lack access to these facilities, which are often linked to a renewable energy grid. They work with locals to determine their economic and social needs and then design spaces that cater to these needs, such as industrial parks, community centers, and commercial facilities. Through this empowerment, we aim to create sustainable partnerships.