type: bamboo construction
role: computational designer and bamboo builder
collaboration: Tacuara Diseño en Bambú
location: San Jerónimo, Colombia
year: 2023

Tacuara Diseño en Bambú and the architect Luis Santiago Montoya Ramírez designed the candela spa project. My contribution came during the construction phase, redesigning the project in Grasshopper to improve the workflow on the construction site and providing hands-on support to the prefabrication, assembly, and finishing of bamboo parts. This project reflects a combination of my knowledge of parametric tools with a long-standing interest in vernacular building techniques, which led me to spend three months in Colombia with the Tacuara team.

The project comprises a spa with five capsules and one tunnel connecting them. The first capsule is the reception, and the other capsules are the massage rooms. During construction, my work was divided into two stages. The first was prefabricating beams and pillars and building the physical model. At this stage, I had contact with bamboo treatment techniques, cut it into slats and built beams and pillars by joining and binding several bamboo slats together. The bamboo we used was the Guadua angustifolia, native to Colombia. In the second phase, I redesigned the project in Grasshopper to determine the amount of bamboo we would need to make the woven wall and the guides with angles and measurements for placing the woven wall. I also participated in assembling the woven walls, placement of the ceiling and painting.

What caught my attention in this project was that while digital tools are very useful in managing workflows, an attentive look at the material properties is very important, especially when using heterogeneous materials such as bamboo. Digital tools can help predict this when we do curvature tests, for example, but a careful eye is essential.

Project Architect: Luis Santiago M. Ramírez;
Tacuara Leaders: Camila Dutra and Urabá del Sol Ponzone;
Tacuara Team: Exneider Madrid, Alvaro López, Adolfo Salazar, Jeimer Guarin, Fernando Enamorado, Cristian Morales, Camilo Ocampo;
Volunteers: Camila Calegari Marques, Juliana Saenz, Paola de Gracia, German Castillo, Nicole Figueroa and Yessica Arboleda.