Arkitrek Camp, an architecture summer school in Malaysian Borneo is now taking applications for a 3 week camp in May 2011 For more information and a booking form please email ian@arkitrek.com or contact us here leaving your name, email address and phone number. The Arkitrek Camp is an opportunity for students to design and build a project in response to a real brief on a site in Borneo. Through the experience of realising their design, Arkitrek aims to equip students with skills that bridge the gap between academia...

One month after my last visit, I arrived on Mantanani and was delighted to see the site strewn with impeccable driftwood logs. Albi and his team had scoured the coast and dragged their choice finds through the sea back to the camp site. Some of the logs still lay tethered at the high water line while others where being diligently planed smooth to resemble nothing like driftwood. My romantic dreams of water weathered, silvered and twisted timbers would have to be adjusted, another casualty of the cultural conditioning that...

We can always come up with wonderful ideas for sustainable buildings but if the locals can’t build and maintain it then it’s not sustainable. Camps International are building a camp on Pulau Mantanani, a coral island off the northwest coast of Borneo. Their other two camps in Borneo, at Tinangol and Kipouvo were designed and built entirely by the local communities. This was possible because at Tinangol the camp (a traditional longhouse) was already built and at Kipouvo they wanted a homestay modeled on ‘standard’...