Projeto Ecohab: uma habitação ecológica sob os preceitos da Ecovila Inkiri Piracanga, Maraú-BA

Abstract

The issue of access to adequate housing for socially vulnerable people remains a challenge for Brazil, especially when it comes to protecting the environment at the same time. In recent decades, several government programs and agencies focused on housing issue have been created to address the issue as a social problem. However, most of these programs were not designed for the country’s rural zone, either in light of the real needs of the people to be benefited or to protect the environment in which they would be implemented. Such is the Brazilian reality, in which public policies for housing and the environment are usually treated separately, solidifying a social imaginary that places the need to live in opposition to healthy nature. This research was developed from the critical questioning of such an imaginary, dealing with the theme of social housing from the perspective of sustainability and sustainable architecture. It was carried out with the objective of discussing the housing production of social interest in the country based on the precepts and vision shared by ecovillages and intentional communities linked to permaculture and sustainable development, specially based on the vision of the Inkiri ecovillage (Piracanga - BA). To achieve such objective an empirical research was carried out, which included the methodological tools of informal interviews with residents of the Inkiri ecovillage and the surrounding area; field study to collect data on the area and the family used as a reference to develop a bioconstructed social housing project. The field study was conducted through a two-month immersion in the Inkiri ecovillage. Among the results of this study are: a bibliographic review on the issue of housing in Brazil, sustainability and sustainable architecture; the detailed record of the experience in the ecovillage, sharing about its main socio-environmental and architectural characteristics; and the sharing of the process of the pilot project’s elaboration, which contains the requirements’ program, the architectural concept and the general description of the project – which includes ecological solutions, materials and techniques of bio-construction best suited to the reality of the selected family.