Arkitrek Camp - Blog series by Richard Nelson Sokial (Part 1 of 5) Original post can be found at the Sabah Architectural Heritage Blog Hi everyone, ...hope you all are having a nice week so far. Ian Hall from Arkitrek messaged me on Facebook a few months ago and asked if I would like to volunteer for a summer camp for young architects. Prior to the invitation, I have known Ian for a couple of years now and is thus familiar with the kind of sustainable architecture work that he does. One of his projects for Borneo Rainforest...

By Ian Hall Damn! I wish I had my binoculars. My camera had also packed in the night before. Short of sitting on my specs I couldn’t have been more optically challenged. I needed a camera to photograph those mountains. Ever since I interviewed Doug Scott for a school essay aged 14 I have been an armchair greater ranges mountaineer. Herzog and Lachenal's first ascent of Annapurna 1 fills me with horror every time I read it. I've been gripped by Chris Bonnington's siege of the South Face of the same mountain, which eventually...

We’re defining a social business model for Arkitrek. I want to go down this line because I believe that in pursuit of continuous economic growth, business is doing its fair share of damage in terms of consumption of natural resources, unequal distribution of wealth and changes to our ecosystem? The key difference of a social business is what you do with the profits. This blog is a summary of what I’ve learned so far about setting up a social business and it goes into financial stuff that I’m only beginning to understand....

By Ian Hall The row of dark brown circles on the timber in the photo above are where bolts used to hold together the structure of an industrial warehouse (below). Responsible specification of timber in building projects gives me a headache. Reclaimed timber seems to be one of the best options but it's hardly a solution to the mass market. What's more, it may cost more than freshly cut timber so why should architects specify it? Most of the timber that we used in the recent renovation of the Main Lodge building at Borneo...

This is our proposal for a community kindergarten at Kg Tinagol in the North of Sabah. It will be built by staff and volunteers from Camp Tinangol, a community tourism program operated by the locals with support from Camps International. There are a number of innovations in the construction which respond to sustainable design questions. Design by: Ian Hall, Eoghan Hoare and Oliver Wilson All Images by Oliver Wilson The community's brief was for a three classroom kindergarten on the bottom and a community hall...