The Pregnant Island

The Pregnant Island investigates the impact of large dams on minority communities in China and mainly Brazil. Inspired by heartbreaking statistics about gender inequality, mass migration and loss of culture and a desire to explore the subject outside the problem-solving straitjacket, the project absorbs the factual and mixes it with mythical native tales.

The investigation and design of the Pregnant Island is based on two facts that sound fictional: 1,600 hilltops that were transformed into islands by the initial flooding of the Tucurui Dam reservoir and a water level that can vary 18m between wet and dry seasons, mutating the landscape from valley to lake several times throughout the year.

The project rearticulates the island’s landscape and an indigenous dwelling building/communal house called maloca. The sinuous curves of the building envelope reference local anthropomorphic tribal masks and other archeological remains found in the Amazon region and are generated by its interaction with the movement of the island.

Far from creating an epic story or endorsing a return to a romanticized tribal past, the project merges existing ingredients within spatial narrative – a space that changes with time and is a multidimensional experiment depicting cultural and social ambiguities within the context of native communities. The resulting island is not an architectonic allegory conveying a moral message but an ambiguous space that discloses the fragility of human habitat and individual choice.