Festival of sustainable design comes to Freedom Park in March

At the end of March, local NGO Building Trust International will be hosting Cambodia’s first CAMBOO Festival over the course of one week in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park. 

 

The open festival will see six of Phnom Penh’s finest architecture and engineering universities battling it out in a sustainable building competition, with each school’s students designing and building bamboo displays on site for the judges. 
 

The festival will also showcase the kingdom’s finest environmentally friendly construction and architecture technology. 
 

Khmer Times caught up with David Cole, the founder and director of Building Trust International, to learn more about Cambodia’s first eco-building fair. 
 

Mr. Cole first came to Cambodia to deliver flood resistant housing to communities affected by the severe flooding in 2013. Since then he has helped design health facilities, schools, recreation areas and community-based ecotourism infrastructure. 
 

The design office he opened here, COLE Architecture+Design, continues to grow, and take on new projects and support sustainable development across the country and region.   

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KT: Tell us more about CAMBOO 2017:

 

Mr. Cole: The CAMBOO Festival at the end of March will showcase Cambodia’s rich natural environment with spectacular bamboo buildings and structures providing spaces for people to get to know local industries and local artisans. While promoting natural products and social enterprises that protect and promote some of Cambodia’s best assets: natural landscapes and traditional skills. 
 

Six of the top architecture and engineering universities in Phnom Penh are collaborating with us to design and build pavilions for the festival. Building Trust is hosting an international design competition for the design of the temporary central hall space, which will be the main feature of the festival. 
 

The design challenge is already gaining the CAMBOO Festival international exposure. The week-long event will host stalls in an eco-market space along with shows, demonstrations and daily activities for people of all ages to get involved with. 

KT: What’s the purpose of the event?

 

Mr. Cole: We want to celebrate Cambodia’s natural resources and landscape as well as promote the amazing new industries working with natural products and providing sustainable development strategies that protect and enhance the environment for all those living in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. 
 

I work in the field of architecture and development and we are getting asked more and more to think about sustainability. In fact, it is this growing interest in materials like bamboo that has provided the name to the festival – CAMbodian bamBOO.

 

KT: Who is supporting the event?

 

Mr. Cole: We have the support of a number of organizations doing great work with the ministries of environment, fisheries and forestry. We also have the support of the Municipality of Phnom Penh, which has been kind enough to allow us to use Freedom Park. 
 

We are looking for more people and organizations that would be interested in being part of the event and holding classes, shows or reserving one of the market stalls to promote and sell their products. 
 

We are also on the lookout for companies that may want to sponsor the cause and advertise their brand alongside such a worthwhile event that will attract a diverse mix of people to the central Phnom Penh civic space.  

 

KT: How about the architecture competition?

 

Mr. Cole: Building Trust international has just announced their seventh international design competition, which seeks to find an innovative design proposal for a landmark pavilion structure made from bamboo. 
 

The bamboo piece will be the center of a CAMBOO Festival in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this March. The competition challenges architects, designers and engineers to provide a design solution which has the chance to shape the future of building with bamboo globally. 

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