Interview with Ángela Ruiz (IE School of Architecture)

Professor Ángela Ruiz Plaza (IE School of Architecture)

     What do you do in the south of Marruecos?

I have a research and cooperation project. It is a project on sustainability in the M’hamid oasis, the last oasis in the valley of the Draa, in the Sahara desert. There are 7 kasbahs which reached great splendor at the time of the camel caravans and that now are in decadence. The project tries, on one hand, to analyze the socioeconomic, agricultural and architectural conditions of the village and on the other, it researches on the sustainable development of architecture in the desert, on biotechnology applied to the construction, on biofarming on dry soil and on the development through tourism and cooperation aimed at the preservation of the cultural identity and the improvement of life conditions for the local population.

     What can an architect learn in a developing country?

First, and foremost, he/she learns to see architecture as something closely related to society and people. The architect learns that architecture responds to the need of living. And in an extreme climate like the one in the Sahara, he/she learns that architecture must be simple and intelligent and to adapt him/herself to the environment, like an animal does in the ecosystem where it lives. In this context, architecture is a huge challenge as you have to provide complex and effective answers in extreme conditions. 

     What is the impact of architecture on the local and communitarian development?

In this case, the role of architecture is very important. On one hand, infrastructure is really important so you can provide water, electricity, drainage, etc. On the other hand, it is also essential the development of roads, bridges, etc. because architecture is the place that hosts the gatherings of the population.

A clear example of the influence of architecture in the development of the community is the mosque. There is an old mosque built out of soil and with huge pillars that is abandoned. They have built a mosque in the outskirts of the village but this one is built out of concrete. The outcome is that the heat inside the new mosque is unbearable, and the population ends up gathering in the office of the association of development that they created, and there is no other place where to have a meeting than on the street during the sunset.

Community life is essential for the development of any society and architecture must give solutions for that.

     What is, in your opinion, the future of architecture in Morocco?

In general, Moroccan architecture has nothing to do with the project that we are undertaking. Unfortunately, in the rest of Morocco there are massive construction projects all over place, bad quality buildings. Most of them are housing projects, built on short budgets, with concrete, with no insulation, with too much poorly prepared labor. All this obviously brings very bad buildings to the landscape, although at the same time foreign investors and construction companies are also coming to Morocco and they are compensating it with good buildings. In Morocco you can basically see anything as there are no construction laws and bribes are all over the place.

If you want to know about Moroccan architecture in the oasis and in the Sahara desert, it has, in my opinion, a devastating future ahead doomed to collapse or to disappear under the dunes if we do not do anything to help it.

     What lessons can students of architecture learn from this experience?

They can learn a lesson for the rest of their lives. In a world highly digitalized, sophisticated and technological, this experience brings you back to the human, real and tangible aspects of life. It was very beautiful to see a first year student taking measure of the old mosque with a kid from the village, trying to explain with gestures how to hold the string and at the end giving him as a present the tape measure that they had used. The kids in the village played with anything they found and this student started to make his own gadgets with whatever he found, experimenting creativity, born out of necessity and not just from the simple art game of doing something new. After this experience, the student left the village longing to learn, research and invent the future of the oasis. And myself, with the same yearning for knowledge and research in order to give a good answer for the future and sustainable development of this desert paradise.