Design and Build with Mediterranean Cane

This spring CanyaViva, in collaboration with Animame, will be running a series of courses and work camps, in order to build a multi-functional space on the hillside looking over Rogel Farms, a new community project in Alcantarilha, in the South of Portugal.

Since the project will be looking at various ways of using and regenerating the land, from running permaculture and bio-construction courses to hosting yoga retreats and other activities, the first building project to take place will provide a classroom as well as a space for yoga, meditation, dance and similar workshops. The course will be 10% theoretical and 90% practical, and will be preceded by three weeks of harvest from the Alcantarilha river, less than a kilometer away. The canes will then be cleaned and classified on the land, before being assembled into flexible but highly resistant arches that will make up the structure built onto a wooden platform which will also serve as the building’s foundations. The second part of the course will be run by Antonio Gandano, who will come from Cadiz to teach us how to build a thatch roof from river reeds.