Inspiring examples of FIBRA and TERRA+FIBRA Award
In the face of climate change, bamboo offers beneficial solutions for the necessary adaptation of the building sector. This is demonstrated by many of the finalists of the TERRA+FIBRA Award, the global prize for contemporary earthen and plant fiber-based architectures. This lecture and the exhibition shown at the European Bamboo Expo highlight the great diversity of forms and techniques that enhance local resources and draw from local building cultures. They illustrate the esthetic qualities, the constructive innovations, and the environmental benefits of bamboo projects and confirm that sustainable practices exist throughout the world, in highly diverse contexts. Well-grounded in their territory, these frugal and creative architectures open up the potential for new horizons. Through the haptic desire that they inspire, the natural materials reconnect us to the earth we inhabit. This potent emotional effect, that shakes up the way we view the world, makes us question our practices as builders and bears the political message of the genius of simplicity.
Biography
A French architect living in Germany, Dominique Gauzin-Müller works since 40 years on the multiple facets of sustainable architecture: materials, energy, social and cultural implications. She has curated several exhibitions and published 23 books. She initiated 2015 the TERRA Award, world’s first prize for contemporary earth architecture and 2019 the FIBRA Award for contemporary architecture in plant fibers, now combined in the TERRAFIBRA Award. Honorary Professor of the UNESCO Chair “Earthen Architectures, Constructive Cultures and Sustainable Development”, she lectures in several universities around the world. The “Manifesto for a happy and creative frugality in architecture and planning” she co-initiated in 2018, has gathered more than 15,000 signatures, creating an international movement for a paradigm shift in the building sector.