CARAPACE
A Cathedral for Afro-Panamanian Religions, Ritual Water Space and Flood Retention Landscape
San Miguelito Favela, Rio Abajo, Panamá
Carapace is an intervention in the San Miguelito Favela, a place in Panamá city of predominantly Afro-Panamanian residency. It extends the investigation developed in Flame, a project for an urban firepit carried out in the first year of study, in which to perform the Afro-Panamanian ritual ‘El Diablo’. The current project now addresses the ritual and environmental dimensions of water to provide a gathering place – a cathedral for these folk religions that is also an architecture of care, animated by tensions between heritage, health and religion.
Set within the favela’s abrupt terrain, Carapace attempts to activate the inert valley with a water ladder system that acts as the spine of the project. Integrated as a flood retention system during the monsoon season, the ladder directs the water towards pools for containment, with refuges carefully placed to shelter the homeless and protect precious possessions.
At the top of the valley, the cathedral latches onto the rising ground. The project is inspired by the heroic acts of the sixteenth-century King Bayano, a leader of the Yoruba community in the Gulf of Guinea who was enslaved but came to lead the Cimmarones (slave rebels), taking refuge in the mountainous region of Panamá. The cathedral re-enacts the King’s actions and provides a place of worship, gathering and contemplation. Routing the cleansing water collected in the valley – channelling it by constructed steps into a central stepwell – a space is composed to enable ‘El Diablo’ to be again performed on water.
