The province of Formosa in northern Argentina is one of the most biodiverse regions of Latin America. While forests are abundant in resources, its people live immersed in scarcity, among other reasons, due to the advance of the agro-industrial frontier.

The project Harvesting Agriculture aims to build a center for water harvesting and agricultural production based on a system for retaining water during periods of summer rainfall for later agricultural use during the dry season in the winter. The construction will be managed by the Lote 8 community in Departamento Matacos itself, as a form of empowerment, reassessing traditional building techniques and enabling knowledge transfer to future generations.

Read project feature in 4th Holcim Awards 2014/2015 (flip-book)

Damian Fernandez of Red Comunidades Rurales sees the main challenge of the project was to become acquainted with and understand local values and traditions which were then applied to how the project is constructed. “Harvesting Agriculture: Community center for water harvesting and agriculture” in Matacos, Argentina won a Holcim Awards Acknowledgement prize for restoring the balance of rural communities in regions marked by rural-to-urban migration and steadily proliferating poverty.

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The 12 winning projects of the Holcim Awards 2014 for Latin America focus mainly on adaptability and social performance, and show how sustainable construction is developing multi-disciplinary responses to the challenges facing design and building. A public park above a series of reservoirs in Medellín, a low-impact timber rainforest center in Costa Rica and a pedagogically-aligned school in Mexico were awarded gold, silver and bronze.

The project’s vision to restore the balance of rural communities in regions marked by rural-to-urban migration and steadily proliferating poverty is commended by the jury. In this context, the design offers a series of strategies to strengthen local agriculture in order to alleviate predominant deficiencies – with the management of scarcity, whether pertaining to water, labor or food, being at the core of the proposed interventions. Greatly appreciated is the idea to combine forestry with agriculture, and to propose water retention basins in close proximity to both farming fields and settlements. The project makes an important contribution to the field of resource management for regions marked by shortages, though rich in yet untapped assets.

The province of Formosa in northern Argentina is one of the most bio-diverse regions of Latin America. While forests are abundant in resources, its people live immersed in scarcity, among other reasons, due to the advance of the agro-industrial frontier. The project Harvesting Agriculture aims to build a center for water harvesting and agricultural production based on a system for retaining water during periods of summer rainfall for later agricultural use during the dry season in the winter.