An Urban Platform for the Indigenous People of Xingu

Although Indigenous people utilize Canarana for economic, government, retail, and health services, the journey to the city is often arduous and the stay is of uncertain duration. The current urban infrastructure does not provide sufficient accommodations and the city often targets and exploits Indigenous people's limited resources.

We are proposing a design to improve the relationship between the Indigenous people and the City, envisioning a symbiotic platform of exchange. While the modern reality may entail a certain reliance on Western services, the Indigenous people offer a unique wealth of knowledge, particularly in shamanism, ethnobotany, and homeopathic medicine. This expertise has the transformative potential to be shared among the Indigenous and greater urban community, and grow upon already existing collaborations and databases.

This project focuses specifically on improving the Indigenous people's interaction with the city of Canarana, located in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Indigenous people, especially Shamans, have a notably extensive knowledge of local plants and their medicinal uses. Unfortunately, the younger generations have grown up more accustomed to Western medicine and routines, resulting in their significant lack of interest in shamanic apprenticeship.

“Every time a shaman dies, it is as if a library has burned down.”

The richness of Indigenous healing knowledge has already been recognized in Brazil. Existing organizations such as the Bahserikowi'i Centro de Medicina Indígena in Manaus, where Indigenous leaders have partnered with Western doctors to provide healthcare throughout the region and incorporate different areas of knowledge to provide the best possible care. Through these partnerships, we can begin to understand the impact and importance of the development of a platform for this healthcare that can elevate it’s accessibility and understanding.

We also looked at the Amazon Conservation Team’s Shamans and Apprentices Program, founded by anthropologist Mark Plotkin, who spent several years learning from shamans, compiling community medicinal plant books (with the final product translated and returned to the Indigenous people) to support the living traditions of shamans and apprentices.

The buildings of the Indigenous villages of Xingu and the greater Amazon are composed of local and organic materials, such as sticks, woven palm fronds, and earth. This project aims to utilize a sustainable building methodology that aligns with Indigenous values and typologies. The primary construction logic of the proposed structure stems from the process of creating rammed earth, a thick wall made of compressed mud. Building rammed earth requires a wooden scaffold that is made up of incremental double columns, which buttress the mud in between. The density of columns and filling or leaving the scaffolding open, defines the public and private spheres within the complex.

The fluidity of the project's spaces and flexible programmatic elements rely heavily on the primary structure for basic delineation and gradient of public to private, radiating from the communal central space.

The system of double structural column stands unclad, proximate to the center. They are spaced per the human scale, in an increment optimal to hang a hammock in between. In more private or domestic areas, the columns are filled with rammed earth to table or wall height.

Rammed earth is a highly sustainable building method and aligns with Indigenous values of using natural and local construction materials.

The columns support an overarching double-curve wooden rafter system, which unifies the distributed spaces under one ceiling. Upon these beams sits a light thatched roof, similar to those found in Indigenous construction in Xingu.