Project Narrative - Terra Firma:

  Located in the Upper East Region of Ghana, Bolgatanga is a city that is bursting with culture and community. With a population of around 160,000 people, Bolgatanga is a lively city in which its residents make a living from various trades such as quarry mining, selling hand-crafted goods, and, most prominently, agriculture. In Bolgatanga, the community is everything. People live and work closely together in “clusters” of buildings scattered across the west African landscape. These building clusters are made up of small houses, shops, storage sheds, and marketplaces, each fulfilling its specific purpose for the community.

Positioned only a couple miles from the bustling city center, Terra Firma blends into the existing urban fabric by incorporating aspects of the live/work clusters that immediately surround the site, defining a unique yet complimentary cluster to be a place that is not solely exclusive to people who are going to live there but rather embraces the people who are already living there as well. Embracing the theme of clusters led us to scale our original building massing into 4 individual buildings, allowing for greater movement, porosity, and connectivity within the site and to the surroundings.

The ground floors of Building 1 and Building 3 are communal areas, the busier street side of Building 1 attracts people from the sidewalks, through the main entrance, and into the main outdoor community area. This space is used for countless activities, including pop-up markets, shared public gardens, and cultural celebrations. Building 1 contains a “teaching kitchen” and a learning center to educate children and visitors on local agricultural practices. It is located on the ground floor adjacent to the communal tool shed. Similarly, in support of the local community, a flexible street-side marketplace is open and adaptable for use by the local community. This creates a place for people to come together, trade, and sell goods that they have produced within their local neighborhood. Located above the teaching kitchen and marketplace on the second floor, a “food court” provides an outlet to sell locally grown foods and allows people to overlook and enjoy the surrounding activity.

Two levels high, Building 3 includes an agricultural “shed” for the community to borrow and share tools, store crops and small livestock, and wash/prepare their produce. These spaces help to connect the site with the surrounding local farms. Also included is a communal fitness center so that users don’t have to go all the way into the city to work out. Across a breezeway, on the same level, there are a few ground-floor apartments. An open-air monumental staircase provides access to upstairs apartments and additional communal space. 

There are a total of four different apartment types: Single, double, triple, and family units. Buildings 2 and 4 are primarily used for residential apartments across all three floors. Building 2 contains 21 different apartments (9 Single units, 6 Double units, 3 Triple units, and 3 Family units) while Building 4 contains 12 different apartments (6 Double units and 6 Family units). Each apartment type is equipped with a full kitchen that includes a refrigerator, oven, microwave, sink, and stove. Every apartment also has at least 1 full bathroom complete with a toilet, sink, and shower. In Building 2, there is a large void that goes from the ground floor through the roof. This creates a common laundry area, a very community-centered aspect of life in Bolgatanga. This is embraced by the void carved out on each floor that can be used to hang clotheslines across to dry clothes, as well as create an opportunity for interaction between residents. There are numerous washing machines and folding tables dotted around the void, and the plethora of natural light from the open roof brightens up the building and helps speed up the process of drying clothes.

Outside, Terra Firma is all about being used by the community. The entirety of the site is renovated with fertile soil and fresh green grass for gardening and outdoor recreation, as well as creating space for communal gatherings. The new landscaping also provides irrigation to the crops planted here. A multi-purpose sports field on the northwest corner of the site acts as an extension of the fitness center. The new concrete sidewalks are extensions of existing pathways so that local people can still traverse the site. The intersections create individual sections of landscaping that can be used for different purposes at the same time.

The rooftops of Building 3 are also outdoor communal areas. It is an open area where people can come together to simply exist freely. This “rooftop commons” is accessed via a monumental staircase or pedestrian ramp located in Building 3 which connects to the second level of Buildings 2 and 4 via open-air “bridge” connections. The sections of walls where these bridges meet the buildings are replaced by NanaWalls. These NanaWall systems are made of large glass doors that can be opened and folded out of the way to provide programmatic flexibility and create a more open experience.

Sustainable building practices are becoming evermore present in places like Bolgatanga. Roughly 70% of the Terra Firma is made up of compressed earth blocks (CEB). These CEBs are produced by mixing local earth with sand and coconut fibers for reinforcement. Next, the materials are dampened and packed into a wooden mold which is then compressed and dried to form a solid CEB. The CEB mold is designed in such a way that it can be easily rearranged by simply removing a few screws, meaning it is capable of producing 3 differently shaped CEBs very quickly.

3 different “wall types” are designed by assembling the various CEBs including a completely solid private wall type, a semi-porous wall type for ventilation and movement, and a very porous screen wall system for light and visibility. These 3 wall variations are deployed throughout Terra Firma based on programmatic design. A structural column system is constructed by arranging the CEBs to form a large void that is then filled with concrete. These columns are deployed alongside standard 8” x 8” concrete columns to form a structural grid that is anchored to a solid concrete foundation and footers. Concrete floor slabs reinforced with steel rebar sit atop the columns, creating floor-to-ceiling heights of either 12’ or 18’ depending on programmatic needs. The “floating roof” system consists of relatively light corrugated steel panels that sit atop steel trusses that are connected to the columns, creating a system that is consistent with much of Bolgatanga’s design language.

Through the careful use of local materials, sustainable building techniques, and contextual integration Terra Firma creates a unique yet still familiar live/work experience for the people of Bolgatanga. Terra Firma addresses both cultural context and existing site conditions and responds accordingly. At Terra Firma, everyone has access to their own space for private living as well as communal space to work, share ideas, and gather around with others.