A Sublime Work of Architecture

On a wild isolated beach on the Ilha de Comprida, to the south of São Paulo, I came across this wonderful shelter built by passing walkers out of driftwood and maritime debris. It got me thinking about how the construction of dens is a universal form of childhood play, driven by the desire to create sanctuaries in which we hide and escape from the adult world. Sheets pulled over chairs in the kitchen, planks of wood leant against a wall, holes in the ground covered by branches, bunkers in the rubble of ruined buildings, precarious nests in trees, we are born builders with an innate sense of construction that never truly leaves us.  So, there I sat, protected from the intense midday sun weaving twigs in and out of the upright bamboo, gazing out at the relentless fury of the Atlantic Ocean, and all the while contemplating the paradox that for over a quarter of the world’s population, self-build construction is not a ludic exercise in structural engineering but a reality born of necessity.