Etienne Samin

The staircase restoration completed!

After a strenuous week we completed the new staircase. Third layer of clay placed on the roof, dense red clay colored twigs made the finish of the porch and the wooden structure also got its red clay paint. >>>

Staircase walls and roof structure finished, short visit to Dzongkul

After some serious effort the new walls of the staircase are standing, and the wooden roof-structure is ready. Last weekend visited the Zangla nunnery school on their picnic at the riverside, and payed a short visit to Dzongkul monastery, the birthplace of the essays published by Csoma as Alexander books. >>>

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I am Etienne SAMIN / French. I was born in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) in 1979 and lived there until 1988.
I studied architecture first at the school of architecture of Nancy from 1997 to 2001. Then I pursued the course of my studies at the University of Technology and Economics (BME) in Budapest as an Erasmus exchange student.
I extended my stay in Budapest from 2002 to the end of 2005 in order to pick up some Hungarian language and culture. This was the period when I met Balazs Irimias and we became friends soon.

The urban and cultural experience in Budapest made me initiate an « architecture-action » project for my diploma work. This work consisted of giving birth to a cultural center through the physical reuse and symbolic rehabilitation of an old factory in a depraved urban and social context.

Back in France, I completed my diploma and finished another Master in « Town and territories Urban Engineering » (2006-2007). The same year I worked with a research group about the assessment of complex sustainable systems (like industrial processes or built environments).

My interest for this project is motivated by its different dimensions of a « contextual and vernacular project »:
1- it can be considered as vernacular following the investment and the attention payed to cultural dimensions of the immaterial and built environment: local networking with Zangla`s King and population; traditional construction materials, etc.
2- It is also contextual since the architectural renovating process allows the conservation of a highly identified living historical monument. It means acting collectively on the evaluation of risks and strategical planning with local and international actors and partners.

All in all it is a very interesting architectural, cultural and human experience. Csoma`s Room Project reflects a way a to renovate a depraved building in extreme conditions (with the help of new technologies for assessments, measuring, studying, modeling, etc.) by integrating local traditional construction knowledge, and western culture and identities.
Last but not the least, friendship generated a solidarity movement around several countries and may constitute the most important sustainable cement of this project and I am glad to participate to it.