{"id":26255,"date":"2025-03-12T19:03:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-13T01:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/interventions\/eco-village-in-cha-de-igreja\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T19:03:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T01:03:59","slug":"eco-village-in-cha-de-igreja","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/interventions\/eco-village-in-cha-de-igreja\/","title":{"rendered":"Eco village in Cha de Igreja"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ramos Castellano architects invites us to discover the<\/span> Eco Village in Cha de Igreja<\/b>, a project that transforms an arid land in Africa into a self-sufficient community, with agricultural terraces, local stone houses, and sustainable energy and water systems, revitalizing a depopulated area and promoting responsible tourism.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The island of Santo Antao is located in the middle of the Atlantic about 500 km from Senegal, and has a size of 779 km<\/span>2<\/span> with approximately 80,000 inhabitants. It is the northernmost of the Cape Verde archipelago. A volcanic and mountainous island, populated since the mid-1500s in various phases, by a mixture of Portuguese farmers from the islands of Macaronesia, nobles disliked by the Portuguese crown, Jews expelled due to pogroms and descendants of enslaved people forcibly deported from various regions of Africa. In the northern part of the island, exposed to the ocean winds, are located the villages of Cruzinha da Gar\u00e7a and Cha de Igreja and between them, the organic settlement.<\/span><\/p>\n

The economy of the island is traditionally agricultural, with the predominant cultivation of sugar cane for the production of Grogue, the famous Rhum of the islands, is gradually but rapidly becoming tourist-based. Young people prefer to live in the cities rather than live in the fields due to the lack of opportunities, consequently the island’s villages are slowly becoming depopulated.<\/span><\/p>\n

About 8 years ago, the owners of a German tourist\u00a0Agency contacted us with the intention of developing a real estate project on a 5-hectare plot of land near the sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Vista a\u00e9rea desde el oc\u00e9ano \/ Aerial view from the ocean
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Sergio Pirrone<\/p><\/div>\n

The project consists of 3 hectares of cultivable area, 14 double rooms,\u00a04\u00a0villas, a service building, a restaurant with lounge, a multifunctional panoramic building, a photovoltaic field, 3 irrigation water deposits,\u00a0and\u00a0a well.\u00a0This is the final program\u00a0proposed by\u00a0our Studio,\u00a0different\u00a0from their original intentions of real estate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cabo Verde is a country with a structural deficit of arable area,\u00a0therefore\u00a0the techniques currently used in the country, and the consequent agricultural production are insufficient to feed the population of the islands. For this reason\u00a0one of\u00a0the first objectives of our project is to use all the cultivable surface of the available area,\u00a0making it irrigated and suitable for cultivation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Cosecha \/ Harvest
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Ramos Castellano arquitectos<\/p><\/div>\n

During\u00a0the first 2 years of the project, approximately 20 people from neighboring villages were employed in the construction of\u00a0about 5\u00a0km of terraces, which transformed 5 hectares of abandoned and dry area into approximately 3 hectares of flat, cultivable, and irrigated area. In this way the settlement increased the agricultural surface area and introduced vegetables and fruit into the local market, contributing to lowering the prices of vegetables in nearby communities and increasing supply.<\/span><\/p>\n

This process changed in some way the local feelings about the visitors, whose presence\u00a0starts to be perceived as an element that brings energy to the\u00a0social eco-system,\u00a0as opposed to\u00a0the logic of all-inclusive hotels: the dominant economic model on the\u00a0other touristic\u00a0islands\u00a0of Cabo Verde.<\/span><\/p>\n

After having built the terraces and begun to cultivate them, we studied the positions of the houses and rooms, spending different periods of the year camping on the terraces. The points protected from the strong and constant prevailing winds,\u00a0out of the way of rockfall,\u00a0and with a view of the valley or the sea,\u00a0were identified. Having found the most favorable positions, the buildings were positioned, inserting and integrating the project into the mountain like a vast work of land art.\u00a0An intervention respectful of the power and grandeur of the mountains,\u00a0which aims to create\u00a0a holistic harmony with the environment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The buildings were positioned, inserting and integrating the project into the mountain like a vast work of land art, is an\u00a0 intervention respectful of the power and grandeur of the mountains,\u00a0which aims to create\u00a0a holistic harmony with the environment.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"

Vista a\u00e9rea \/ Aerial view
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Sergio Pirrone<\/p><\/div>\n

The impact on the village as well as the ecological footprint had to be minimal, the sustainability of the project is based on the following principles:<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of local materials available on site, such as basalt stone, sand, and gravel, available\u00a0a\u00a0short distance away,\u00a0in the valley below, and continuously renewable after\u00a0the rainy\u00a0season. Therefore the walls of the houses and rooms are made of stone and through thermal inertia they guarantee,\u00a0along with cross ventilation,\u00a0climatic comfort avoiding the use of air conditioners.<\/span><\/p>\n

The use of local labour, and construction techniques commonly used in the area, with simple but contemporary solutions and technologies; the minimum use of heavy machinery in order to increase the use of human energy,\u00a0to distribute\u00a0as much as possible in the nearby villages the\u00a0required\u00a0capital for the construction,\u00a0so\u00a0making the organic settlement close to the local populations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Trabajadores erigiendo las paredes de la terraza de piedra \/ Workers erecting the stone terrace walls
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Ramos Castellano arquitectos<\/p><\/div>\n

Usually,\u00a0the water\u00a0used to reach\u00a0the ground only when it rained, i.e. 2 or 3 times a year, as Cape Verde is in the same latitude\u00a0of\u00a0the Sahara desert. After the intervention on the site,\u00a0water is constantly available\u00a0thanks to a well in the valley\u00a0with\u00a0a desalination plant and a hydraulic pump that works with solar energy provided by photovoltaic panels.\u00a0In addition to\u00a0this, all buildings are equipped with mechanical\u00a0systems\u00a0for\u00a0filtering\u00a0and reusing\u00a0gray water. These waters, after mechanical filtration and through a gravity drop-by-drop system, irrigate the vegetation around the buildings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The energy that comes in the Cape Verde islands from Germany in the form of money is transformed into a settlement that generates well-being and balance between nature and human beings. A new rural settlement opposed to the predominant form of neocolonialist tourism that invades the islands; It proposes a solution of cooperation, mutual benefit, and fair exchange.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Esquema de funcionamiento energ\u00e9tico \/ Energy operation diagram
Ilustraci\u00f3n \/ Illustration: Ramos Castellano arquitectos<\/p><\/div>\n

The project began 5 years before the pandemic and only after the pandemic\u00a0it\u00a0became current and necessary. It has brought life where there was none, generating food and human resources in areas undergoing depopulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the interiors and furnishings, designed by Ramos Castellano arquitectos, were\u00a0craft-worked\u00a0by\u00a0artisans from\u00a0local workshops, always with the aim of distributing capital and knowledge locally, creating a human infrastructure prepared to build future projects, which will be implemented in the same area with high tourist\u00a0demand.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Vista del proyecto \/ Project view
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Sergio Pirrone<\/p><\/div>\n

The vegetation that pervades the environment, covering the garden roofs, walls, and terraces, has been studied\u00a0with the consultancy of an agronomist\u00a0in order to create multi-sensory paths which, through the positioning and direction of the prevailing winds, bring the scents to the different points of the settlement. They guarantee direct contact between nature and the visitors, inserting the guest into a rural lifestyle typical of the island and its mountains,\u00a0revisited in contemporary key and vision.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Vista del proyecto \/ Project view
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Sergio Pirrone<\/p><\/div>\n

Particular attention was given to the soundscape of the environments, which due to their position and shape welcome the sound of the waves crashing on the beach below, amplifying it, creating sound environments that contribute to the totality of the experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

Vista del templo \/ Temple view
Fotograf\u00eda \/ Photography: Sergio Pirrone<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ramos Castellano architects invites us to discover the Eco Village in Cha de Igreja, a project that transforms an arid land in Africa into a self-sufficient community, with agricultural terraces, local stone houses, and sustainable energy and water systems, revitalizing a depopulated area and promoting responsible tourism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":26219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interventions"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landuum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}