From Yacademy Graduate to 3D Printing Pioneer in African Architecture: Aquitofel Mananga's Professional Journey

From Yacademy Graduate to 3D Printing Pioneer in African Architecture - An Interview with Alumnus Aquitofel Mananga on his Professional Journey

Hello Aquitofel, and thank you for participating in this interview. You attended the course in Architecture for Humanity at Yacademy. Was it a useful experience for your professional career? How did your approach to architecture and design change after it?

Yes, it was a very peculiar and useful experience that influenced my present critical analysis and sensitivity on architecture a lot. I acquired knowledge and strategies to focus on creating a good project independently of the context of reference, and based on this pattern, I always try to produce ethical and self-supporting architecture.

My approach changed drastically and significantly after training: I would define it as "re-angling the future through vernacular or traditional elements in a contemporary language allied to technology". For sure, in Africa – Angola, we have several social, cultural, political, and economic problems that affected architecture over time. In such context, the search for architectural identity has been addressed but on a small scale, and in order to realize what the vision of architecture might be, we need to understand now the identity we lost and what we have left to advance. Thus, I seek to be a cultured architect, and to approach architecture by reimagining and fusing tradition, technological innovation, and social impact. My  architectural and design language is deeply rooted in the identity, but forward-looking and vernacular, in the sense that it uses local materials and traditional techniques and technology. My aim is to consider the current rural and urban realities, promoting spaces that meet their needs and strengthen the sense of belonging to such areas. These are reinterpreted through geometric forms, spatial use, aesthetic, symbols, materials and construction techniques.

Together with the startup Power2Build you addressed the housing crisis in Angola by introducing large-scale concrete 3D-printing technology. Can you tell us more about this project?

This project shows the contemporary challenges of housing in its functional program, especially considering the housing crisis in Angola and the need to solve the housing deficit through technology. With this in mind, the project carries several interesting design and structural insights for the construction sector. It is meant as a cutting-edge tool showing that, with specialized knowledge, we can solve various issues.

Thus, Power2Build is an Angolan construction startup which, with a fully Angolan and multidisciplinary team, intends to contribute to the reduction of this deficit through the use of utomated 3D concrete printing technology. Implemented on site with large-scale construction printers from the Danish company COBOD.

The duplex construction is a self-supporting structure of two floors with walls with air boxes and only beams, without pillar. The formwork components of the floor slab and the structural design which was elaborated by DAR Al-Handasah and COBOD, who are both our partners. The construction took 14 days of work, of which 7 days were required for the printing of the two floors, and other 7 days included traditional work. Another factor to highlight is the implementation of technical networks working according to a program of management designers. This program focused on the possibility of the building to act as a function of a mesh program which could be changed according to the client’s needs. For the second floor, not all the walls were printed by the 3D printer: instead, the internal ones were made by traditional blocks, allowing them to be eligible for possible future changes.

The house has 175 m2 of built area and contains living room, dining room, kitchen, and toilet. The second floor includes two bedrooms, a sanitary facility support, and a master bedroom with sanitary facilities. These all have balconies.   

This project is very significant, as it is the first self-supporting house in the world made by 3D printing technology. Moreover, starting from the idea of having an increasingly fast, safe and sustainable construction, and of making lifetime and quality a priority, the technology used allowed us to have a very optimized and quite fast construction. Furthermore, we employed the second largest printer in the world, the BOD 3: it is 40 m long and 15 high, and it can be assembled by models according to the needs of construction or printing area. Finally, it operates at speeds between 100 mm/s and 500 mm/s, with an ideal speed of 250 mm/s.

What does introducing 3D printing to Africa mean to you and what potential is there for the future?

As the youngest pioneer architect in Africa in 3D printing, introducing this technology meant a lot. It is far beyond a mere working tool, as it has also enhanced our design trends, helping us challenge and break socio-cultural and aesthetic paradigms while improving our human resources.

Talking about 3D Printing means talking about a future that is certainly written in a timeless world, without ignoring the identity factors that make up a society. The potential of technology lies in its capability of helping us to express creativity combined with traditional construction and innovation, all the while enhancing the quality of the buildings.

Do you have any other projects in progress? What dreams would you like to realise in the coming years?

Yes, there are other projects. Certainly, the most recent and ongoing one deals with the construction of the first large-scale commercial public equipment made in Angola and the first in Africa entitled Ondjang park. This project is inspired by the concept ondjango, an ancestral technology or a physical and symbolic space where people come together to deal with matters shared within a community. It is certainly a great honor for me to be the architect author and coordinator of this architectural project, being very young at only 28 years old. A project and work of this magnitude requires a lot of responsibility, and this of course fills me with pride and joy.

In the coming years, I certainly wish to have many projects built both on the national and international scene. Besides this, however, one of my is to have solid and efficient architecture, committed to the social and cultural context and able to change the course of events in a country, giving hope to the youngest architects and proving that architecture goes beyond construction management. I believe that architecture is a tool for recreating dreams that never end, as good architecture is timeless.