Parahiba: An architectural dialogue of compromise and redemption

Kent School of Architecture, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent

Project idea

“Parahiba” embodies an attempt to contemplate an alternate and very possible reality that is deeply tied to our contemporary society. It reverses the common and known, and proposes a mirrored dimension which plays on the Cold War, and the implication that it had on the UK, the USA, and Cuba in 1962 when the three parties were involved in an international event which was swiftly “brushed under the rug”. “Parahiba” chooses to shine the light on the event, and explore an architectural tale of Cuba’s consequential rise to prominence in international trade, by creating a market for authentic Cuban Cigars and expanding the entertainment industry of the planned “Paramount World in Swanscombe, UK. The idea is to feature a building, a village, an event that exposes a simultaneous collaboration and conflict, a push and pull relationship which delivers a compelling and exciting conversation in the form of a Cuban cigar farm attraction park.

Project description

A tale of conflict and opportunity, Parahiba explores an architectural dialogue that is entwined with historical and cultural oppositions. This Masters thesis project imagines a narrative where Cuba seeks responsibility and recompense for the destruction of a supposed accidental shipwreck, which contained a new fleet of buses. The Magdeburg, the ship which sunk in the Thames (Swanscombe, UK) was deemed an accident but this narrative blames the US, who was rumored to have interfered with this trade deal in the 1960s, during the Cold War. As Cuba seems to reassert itself in the global economy, it claims a part of Swanscombe and establishes the headquarters of its Cuban Cigar Trading Company, known as Parahiba, where there are already ongoing plans and procedures to create Paramount World. But what impact does this have on the UK, on Cuba, on Brexit, and the capitalist society which we have become accustomed to, where this Cuban cigar farm seeks to revolutionize the entertainment industry by proposing a controlled DIY experience of growing and tasting cigars, in return for the upkeep of the facility.

Technical information

This project undertakes a captivating environmental and sustainable endeavor, as it seeks to efficiently use a decommissioned weather station in the chosen decaying industrial site. The chosen site features a gathering of illegal structures by people who have claimed the land as their own, and use it as a dock, a port and surely a home. The Cigar farm would propose to keep this community, rather than destroy it as Paramount World would, and incorporate it into the cigar farm empire to develop a series of hydroponic cigar farm towers. This project features the first prototype, which is built around the existing structure of a weather station. It proposes to mirror the existing structure with a glulam frame without touching it. Instead, it would cover the existing structure in glass, and use it for stack ventilation, and to feed the different spaces that concern tobacco and cigar production with the necessary humidity and temperature.