Reconstruction of Bondo

My home village was hit by a landslide in 2017 which destroyed a large part of the village extension from the 1960s. The project shows where the affected families can rebuild their houses and how the village could even be expanded. This is an attempt to show how such a tragic event can become an opportunity for a village development.

I started analysing the history of the village and its dependencies with the cultural landscape. This process allowed me to understand the village structure and to come to the conclusion that the areas affected by the landslide were unsuitable locations for living. The densely built up village centre with lots of streets, houses and squares, was built following a logic pattern. This area is nearly exclusively occupied by residential houses, which were built right on the street-front and have some private spaces in the backyard. Each crossroad is characterised by a small square or a sitting space. Further it also became apparent that the built-up area in the village centre was surrounded by a cultivated green space. Stables and green areas for vegetable gardens and agriculture were arranged in a circle around the village. According to the task of rebuilding I evaluated how many people and living spaces were affected by the rockfall and decided to connect the new spaces to the historian village structure, trying to expand it accordingly to its logic. Connecting the new buildings to the historical village structures allows to restore the garden ring surrounding it and build community gardens. Thus the village entrance could also be evaluated. Further it became also apparent that traditional single-family houses and houses with several living units were built according to different criteria. Larger houses are mostly built at crossroads, while single-family houses occupy the spaces in between. In addition the house types in the historical area were analysed. This showed that all houses follow two models. On the one hand there are the two-storey houses with central corridor and rooms in both side wings and on the other side there are smaller 3-4 storey buildings with side corridors. According to this I focused to design new buildings at the crossroad by the church. One retirement home and two single family houses next to it. Trying to develop contemporary houses based on the traditional typologies. Furthermore for me it was important to use local building materials to support local businesses and craftmanship.