VENICE.- Beyond Entropy Angola is the first Pavilion of the Republic of Angola at the International Architecture Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia.
It has been commissioned by the Minister of Culture for the Republic of Angola and promoted by the Government of Angola, with generous sponsorship from Banco Privado Atlantico, SOAPRO and PLANAD and technical support from Netafim, e-Data Energy and Oikos-colore e materia per l’architettura. The pavilion has been curated, designed and produced by Beyond Entropy Ltd.
The project Beyond Entropy Angola consists of a 1:1 scale reconstruction of a new urban model for the high-density suburban areas of Luanda, the capital of Angola with seven million inhabitants. It acts simultaneously as a green space and a piece of infrastructure.
The rapid demographic growth of Luanda is a paradigm of the urban transformation that is proliferating throughout Africa with similar problems and contradictions: metropolis without urbanity; congestion without infrastructure; high density without towers.
Facing such a challenge, Beyond Entropy Angola has formulated an innovative proposal in order to stimulate debate over the urban policies of the future. By avoiding destructive interventions within the existing urban fabric, this project consists in planting a commonly-occuring cane, Arundo Donax, into the interstitial spaces between the suburban buildings of Luanda, producing a new type of public space which performs simultaneously as a garden, as an infrastucture to filter brown water, and as a producer of electricity in the form of biomass.
Arundo Donax has extraordinary properties: it grows extremely quickly, its rhizomes have thin roots that filter dirty water naturally and its stems can store large quantities of CO2, which is ideal for biomass.
This project, developed for African cities, answers to a high demand for energy as well as rapid suburban growth. Focusing on the impact of low-tech infrastructures, it proposes a sustainable urban model that can be used as a prototype for other sub-Saharan countries.
This 1:1 scale reconstruction of an energetic Common Ground is the culmination of Beyond Entropy Angola’s recent work. Visitors have the opportunity to walk through a garden/infrastructure and experience the intensity of a space which has not yet been configured, masterminded or defined.
Beyond Entropy is an agency for territorial, urban and architectural production that focuses on energy as the main tool to design new spatial solutions. Beyond Entropy operates on a global scale in critical situations: from uncontrolled urban expansion to the derelict infrastructures of deserted islands; from the redevelopment of overcrowded cities in emerging countries to their protected historical centers.
