Plans for a Bamboo-Roofed Performance Centre for 10,000 in Ecuador
A large performance centre built around a traditional drum is planned for Carchi province in northern Ecuador. Its main hall is designed to hold more than 10,000 people, and its roof will rest on bamboo. Construction is expected to start in 2027.
The project is called the Bombódromo. It is a campus centred on one large auditorium, set along the Chota River in an Andean valley north of Quito, Ecuador's capital. The site was masterplanned by Caá Porá Arquitectura, an architecture firm, for local government, with the aim of celebrating Afro-Ecuadorian culture, the traditions of Ecuadorians of African descent.
The firm worked with Jerome Haferd Studio and the engineer Juan Sebastián Pérez. Dezeen, the design website that published the plans on 11 November 2026, reports that the central performance building takes its form from the bomba drum, a traditional drum used by local people.
The roof is the most unusual part of the plan. Bundles of laminated bamboo, which are strips of bamboo glued together to make stronger beams, will support a roof system 30 metres in diameter. That is roughly the length of a long bus laid end to end, stretched across the whole hall.
The design team also worked with Fundación Casa Oshun, a local group, on outreach to the community. The details of the outreach are still to come.
For the people who would perform, dance and gather there, the plan would mean a large venue in their own valley. Whether it becomes that depends on the build, which is expected to begin in 2027.
