Amazonic Inhabit Transformations, a Sociocultural, Communal and Architectural Approach: Punta De Ahuano’s Facility Analysis - Napo Province

Abstract

The Amazon is a territory in constant transformation motivated by resource extraction under development models that place capital over indigenous communities and nature. The changes are reflected in modes of occupation of the space modified with the implementation of infrastructure and facilities with western urban logic. This is the case of the Punta de Ahuano facility, located in the Ahuano parish on the banks of the Napo River, an innovative bamboo structure financed with public funds in 2012 after the construction of the Jumandy airport. This article is derived from a previous project managed by the associations within the parish to recover the use of the facility after multiple attempts without success. The objective is to highlight the knowledge obtained using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines a sociocultural analysis based on Participatory Action Interaction, compared to the quantitative evaluation using observation matrices of public spaces based on “Placemaking” to search for a comprehensive and complementary approach to assess architectural structures. The main findings show contradictions between state planning and the dialogue of knowledge, the ways of inhabiting and conceiving the Amazonian spaces from collaborative planning, and the lack of community participation in planning and design processes. Finally, the sustainability of the Punta de Ahuano facility is in crisis because it was not enough to consider ecological materials when the territory and management were not considered as intrinsic principles of the design.