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African School Project

Results: African School Project

Archstorming was calling for proposals to design a secondary school  in Benga (Malawi). Universal education, gender equality and empowering women are vital components of the mission in developing countries. Educating children helps reduce poverty and will give the next generation the tools to fight poverty and conquer disease. School also offers children a safe environment, with support, supervision and socialization. Here they learn life skills that can help them prevent diseases, including how to avoid HIV/AIDS and malaria. Children may receive life-saving vaccines, fresh water and nutrient supplementation at school.

The aim of this project is to provide a better education to the youngest citizens of the country by giving them the opportunity to access a decent secondary school infrastructure. The school must have been designed to accommodate four academic years. At first only one classroom per academic year will be constructed, but participants had to take into account that the school could be extended in the future to three classrooms per academic year, which means twelve classrooms could be build at some point.

In the proposals, participants had to adapt on using local materials, easy constructive systems and energetic technologies in order to make proposals as realistic and efficient as possible. To achieve the goals set the following program was proposed: Four classrooms, Teacher office, Computers room,  Library,  Laboratory/ research area, Animal area, Multipurpose space, Dry latrine, Director and secretary office, Meeting room, Storage room, Students dormitories, Twelve basic houses for the teachers.


WINNERS


1ST PLACE

 BENGA PARISH SECONDARY SCHOOL
Ben McMillan, DeQuales Thompson
TEXAS, USA

The Benga Parish Secondary School is a community-oriented space designed to educate Malawian youth. The concept of this campus finds its origin in the representation of life as a journey along a path. The work seeks to symbolize education as a catalyst for success along this path. The theoretical intention of this concept is to materialize the path to success. Students experiencing the space will physically and symbolically walk this path instinctively taking in the significance and purpose of the path’s design.

 


2ND PLACE

THE CIRCLE(S) OF LIFE
Chang Yuan Max Hsu, Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Veronika Volkova
NEW YORK, USA

One of the school’s most highlighted goals is to educate the students about sustainable farming methods. False agricultural practices, such as the burning of farmland and selecting the wrong choice of crops are at the root of Malawi’s environmental and agricultural problems. They weaken the soil structure, making the land vulnerable to deforestation and flooding. Education is key to saving the country’s ability to sustain itself. The cultivated courtyards throughout the school are intended to serve as an educational simulation of conservation farming methods that the students can directly interact with. Students will engage in cultivating the farms with alternating crops such as maize, legumes and sweet potatoes to preserve soil nutrients. Waste collected will be converted to compost used to fertilize the crops and seedlings alike. The farming products are used as food, and any excess can be sold or donated to the local communities.

 


3RD PLACE

AGRICOURTYARDS
Alberto Pottenghi, Luca Astorri
MILANO, ITALY

Courtyard building as a community building.
Inspired by the traditional compound, where rural communities’ lives sharing resources, knowledge and simply daily life, courtyards are the key to create different “micro cosmos” with different functions and atmospheres.
The courtyards, composed by different classes and students of different ages, are thought to recreate the social dynamics of a rural community where young children spend time with older children have delegated responsibility to care for and supervise younger children. This will generate a participation spirit and child to child sociability.

 


4TH PLACE

BENGA SECONDARY SCHOOL
Victor Matheus Correa, Guilherme Xavier, Guilherme Dacas, Lucas Trentin
CAXIAS DO SUL, BRAZIL
The school is born of the meeting between the central cores of the program: education and housing. The intrinsic basis of the program’s relationship is the essence of the exchange movement, the generating matrix of the architecture proposal. The exchange between student and teacher, culture and knowledge, must be continuous, infinite. It is the infinity point that one establishes the territorial framework and element of centrality of the whole. The cultural and spiritual celebration of this local identity.
Designed to be executed in phases, the education and housing core programs are configured to form courtyards, maintaining a community garden for cultivation and maintenance by users, an ornamental structure that makes studying and living more attractive.

 


5TH PLACE

CIRCULAR SCHOOL OF BENGA
Maxime Potiron, Félicie Botton
PARIS, FRANCE

 

 


HONORABLE MENTIONS


THE LEARNING CIRCLE
Nicolai Mina, Lady Roxanne Mina
SINGAPORE

 


CONVERGENT SCHOOL
Pia Marziano, Rene Montaño, Juan Pablo Uribe
VIÑA DEL MAR, CHILE

 

 


LIFE VILLAGE
Elmira Jafari, Erfan Farahmand
DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS

 


BIHE Architectural Department
NEW JERSEY, USA

 


Francisco Tobarra
MURCIA, SPAIN

 


Andrew Duffin, Carmit Saar, Gaurav Bhatewara
MILSONS POINT, AUSTRALIA

MULTI-SPIRAL SCHOOL
Donghua Chen, Shaoyi Liang, Huiting Huang, Huabao Lu
GUANGZHOU, CHINA

Raissa Gattera, Letícia Sitta, Thais de Freitas
JUNDIAÍ, BRAZIL

FOUNDATIONS FOR BENGA
Omar Vergara
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO

THIS IS NOT A SCHOOL
Joshua MacDonald, Jonas Swienty
CALLANDER, CANADA

FINALISTS


 Matan Gal, Dana Lieber‬‏

Mikel Marin Uruchurtu

Raymond Lee, Ching Kan Chan, Solhae Yoon, Gloria Ip

shan qi, qiliang tang, zhenghang ren

Felix Tue, Ciprian Ionescu-Ittu


Paul Kencalo, Dominique Scholl, Veronique Scholl

Igor Augusto Almeida, Ricardson Ferreira, Matheus Pardal

 


Giulio Hasanaj ,Frongia Laura ,Pantella Stella ,Arnetoli Maria Vittoria

 


Elmira Jafari , Erfan Farahmand

Kostas Grigoriadis, Lizy Huyghe

Samuel Vilson, Fabian Reppen

Andrew Yu, Jericho Castañeda, Kristoffer Harina

 

 


Thakan Navapakpilai , Chanakarn Assavasirisilp, Peeranat Wongsirisak

 

 

 


Andrea Di Pietrantonio

 

 

 


yitzhar galmidi

 

 

 


Etienne Gobin, Eva Gourdon, Chloé Leymarie

 

 

 


ORESTES VALELLA

 

 

 


Priyanka Itadkar, Falguni Bhatia

 

 

 


Juan Pellet, Agustina Garcia del Rio

 

 


christian massi, andrea baroncelli

 

 

 


Thor Nielsen, Alexander Bredgaard

 

 

 


Zhong Cai, Yating Wei, Long Xiao

 

 

 


Simone Ierardi, Valentina Penna, Davide Ventura, Filippo Vayra

 

 

 


Dario Guazzo, Jonathan Maier, Marcello Maltagliati, Paúl Moscoso

 

 

 


Alec Ring

 

 

 


Suzy Syme, Andrew Costa

 

 

 


Dominika Kubicka, Marta Opalinska

 

 

 


Patrizia Massera, Alessia Shtjefni, Elisa Novati, Irene Lucca

 

 

 


Sergi Viñals Musquera, Mariona Mayol Batlle, Sergi García Campmany

 

 

 


Heitor Derbli, Andréa Eboli, Samuel Nogueira, Olivier Läuppi

 

 

 


Costanza Galli, Valerio Croci, Vincenzo Demasi

 

 

 


Javier Mola Cárdenes, Roberto Rodríguez Martínez, Ismaël Camara

 

 

 


Christoph Frey, Daniela Pochetto, Jonathan Howell Davies

 

 


Etienne Barre, Pierre-Alain Bouchetard

 

 


Aikaterina Ritsoni, Pelagia Spyridonidou, Dimitris Antoniou

 

 

 


Giacomo Troiani, Fabio Staglianò

 

 

 


 

>>> Go to the competition’s website <<<

 

Categories: Results
Date: July 15, 2021