Sustainability in the New Congo’s Tropical Architecture: A Case Study of The Sabena Towers by Claude Laurens

Abstract

Tropicalizing a building might seem like the best option for a young architect who lands in the tropics, but this is an approach contrary to sustainability. Claude Laurens, through one of his first projects in Congo, understood that it was better to deal with the place from the start. His project became one of the best examples of tropical modernism. The article attempts to contrast an import approach with a more sustainable one, to deal with the present and future context. The research method adopted for this study was a mixed method approach where data was sourced from literature as secondary source and compared with direct observation of the selected case study (The Sabena Towers). The results are presented as figures which were used to further illustrate findings. The result showed that the architect, with little information, did his utmost to offer Congo a new architecture that fitted with the objectives of sustainable development. The study concluded that the architect chose not to adopt the foreign architecture as a solution for the sustainability issues he encountered in the design, rather he evolved solutions that were Congolese based and therefore responded adequately to the challenges of sustainability in Congo and created an architecture for Congo.