SPECIAL REPORT
Construction of a private loft at Cannuá
SUSTAINABLE from the start
Photo : CannuaConstruction
AN ECO-RESORT APPLIES PERMACULTURE PRINCIPLES IN A REMOTE PART OF COLOMBIA .
Contributed by JULIANA SHALLCROSS
An hour and a half from Medellín in a protected forest of Antioquia , a trio of well-traveled entrepreneurs — two Americans and a Colombian who all met at a rock-climbing gym — are building a sustainable retreat that adheres to the design principles of permaculture . When it opens in April , the Cannuá eco-resort will have 10 rooms and eight private lofts . HOTELS spoke with CEO and co-founder Nathan Rodgers about the project . HOTELS : What is permaculture ? Nathan Rodgers : A design philosophy that takes its inspiration from nature . In nature , there ’ s no waste . Everything that is produced by one part of the system is used by another part of the system . It creates bounty and it creates beauty , without effort . Permaculture says that when we build our human environment , we should think of ourselves as a part of the environment . What we create should be sustainable , not just in a ‘ do no harm ’ way , but it can also be regenerative .
H : How are you using it to build your resort ?
NR : Before we got to a design of the building , we tried to understand what is there . Where does the water flow ? Where do the animals live ? How can we build it in a way that ’ s respectful of what ’ s already there , or that doesn ’ t require excavations ? Excavations were required because we had to do some proper foundations . But it was good to understand those elements first and then decide where to put the buildings and what they should look like .
H : What has your sustainable building process been like ?
NR : We are using a bamboo , which is sustainably harvested and is sustainable in itself . Bamboo grows rapidly and if it ’ s cut properly , it can regenerate itself . Another material we are using is compressed earth block . Basically it ’ s an adobe technique , taking compressed earth and applying modern mechanical technology . We have two machines , one that is manual and one that is hydraulic , and these machines used leveraged force to compress blocks into cement-sized cinder blocks . They have the same structural integrity of brick or cinder block , but they have the environmental benefit of taking a material that would have been a waste product on a typical construction project ( earth moved during excavation that has to be moved off site ) and onsite using that same earth , we create the bricks that are being used to build the hotel itself . We moved about 80 tons of earth . H : What about solar power ? NR : For small-scale projects like ours in Colombia , solar power can be prohibitively expensive . We ’ re hoping that to at least implement it on a small scale for some of the outdoor lighting . The benefit we have here is that because of the bounty of water that Colombia has , about 70 % of electricity produced in Colombia is hydro-electric powered , so it ’ s a very renewable source of power .
30 hotelsmag . com January / February 2019