Archstorming, an architectural platform that organizes international humanitarian competitions, has released the results for the African Urban School contest. In this competition, participants were challenged to design a school for Enko Education, a fast-growing network of African international schools that offers affordable quality education in order to provide access for young Africans to the best universities worldwide.

Enko has a total of 15 schools and aims to open 45 more in at least 20 African countries over the next five years. To do so, they are looking for an innovative and adaptive architectural design that will be used in their expansion across the continent, solving their school infrastructure challenges. This contest was focused on their next building, a new Primary and Secondary school for 550 students that will be located in Bamako, the capital of Mali, a landlocked country of western Africa.

Expert judges with experience in Africa, such as Issa Diabaté from Côte d’Ivoire, Jakub Cigler from Czech Republic, Mamy Tall from Senegal, Paola Bagna from Spain or Lin Liu from China thoughtfully selected the five winners and ten honorable mentions of the competition.

The first prize was awarded to Bryan Velastegui, Jose Chavez and Nicolas Dorfflinger from Quito, Ecuador. Whereas the second prize was granted to Hugo Alves Rebelo from Porto, Portugal, and third position to Tan Yeong En and Wong Tian Ming from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The two special honorable mentions were awarded to Fernando Landeros and Nicolás Vidal from Chile and Eduardo Bissoli Loverro, Caio França Lopes dos Santos, Francisco Leão de Campos Andrade and Vicky Berl from Brazil.

WINNERS

1st Place

Bryan Velastegui, Jose Chavez, Nicolas Dorfflinger
QUITO, ECUADOR

The school design takes sustainability as one of the most critical and important points. We have devised different types of school block facades depending on exterior factors such as sun, wind, views to street, garden, corridor, ground floor and 1st level corridor. Different block heights, differentiated by the program they contain, window size, openings, terrace adaptations, and solar panels are varied along the proposal to give the optimum school experience to both faculty and students of all ages while collecting rainwater for bathroom reuse and grass irrigation, sunlight and giving the best thermal comfort. The main circulation joins the project together as a form of representation of the network of students from different backgrounds that gets created in this proposal while being in plain sight for the teachers and staff, making it a straight-forward transition between classes, open and social areas.

Finally a connection is formed between blocks thanks to the social areas (multipurpose room and cafeteria) that form a bridge that more than just a physical structure, imitates the gap that is being bridged every day a new student receives his preparation for a better future through their Enko education studies.

2nd Place

Hugo Alves Rebelo
PORTO, PORTUGAL

In a culture connected to the earth and sensitive to the qualities arising from nature, a School model will be born. It will be the sustainable Archetype of Educational Architecture in the Country. Bamako will be its home.

The School Organism diverge into two transparent volumes. The first adopts a lower shape and houses the Administrative, Nursery, and Primary Programs. The second Volume comprises the social living areas on the ground floor and the entire Secondary School Program on the rest of the Building. Due to the number of classrooms necessary for the Secondary School scenario, this Volumetry ends up receiving a more elegant proportion, proudly demarcating its presence in this quarter of Bamako. This geometry coexists as well with the control of the Sun Shadow in the Outside Playground. Strategically designing the higher Volume at the Northeast Corner of the Plot, the Proposal protects the Playground on the southeast corner from the Sun temperatures.

3rd Place

Tan Yeong En, Wong Tian Ming
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

The design challenge began with a brief to synchronize functionality, program diversity, spatial quality, efficiencies as well as environmental and contextual factors within the constraint of a small site to create a prototype reassessing the typology of an educational facility. This design scheme primarily aims at creating a place where teachers, students, and community can learn, play, and get inspired.

The spatial planning’s first goal is to maximize viability of the scheme by optimizing the allowable site area while controlling the building height to ensure the connectedness of scale in relationship to the context. Building blocks are designed as permeable structures with single-classroom-thick, open-ended corridors, and multiple volume atrium space for low cost and maintenance passive ventilation and lighting.

In term of green and sustainable feature, the roof performs as a giant urban umbrella sheltering the spaces below and a rainwater harvesting system is incorporated to collect rainwaters to be safely used for toilet flushing, irrigation, and general cleaning.