KURANDZA A LEARNING CENTER IN MOZAMBIQUE - Architecture competition - ARCHSTORMING

· BRIEF ·

· introduction ·

Archstorming’s new competition takes us to Mozambique, a country marked by a great number of long-lasting challenges. Although there has been a substantive increase in the household income, over two-thirds of the population still live below the poverty line.

This Sub-Saharan Africa country is ranked 139th out of 159 countries on the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index. Women are exposed to threats of diseases, discrimination and violence.
Around 94% of girls in Mozambique enroll in primary school, but despite this high number, only 11% of girls continue to study in secondary schools. As girls grow older, they are met by an increasing domestic workload and more responsibilities. Many girls have no choice but to stay at home to do chores or work to help their families. Teen pregnancies prove to be a major reason for girls dropping out of school early. 30 to 40 percent of girls are pregnant before they turn 18 years old. Taking care of a child, working and performing household chores can be overbearing and leave these girls no time for school.

In this competition we are partnering up with Kurandza, an NGO determined to provide these girls a safe space where they can study and become the next generation of female leaders.

· challenge ·

This competition is calling for proposals to design a new learning center for the NGO Kurandza. Kurandza is focused on making sure that girls and women in their community are able to finish their studies and don’t have to drop out of school early.

To accomplish that mission, they are building a new learning center where girls can feel safe and comfortable, a place where they can learn, play, run and discover.
Architecture should bring them a dynamic place where they can interact with each other and the surrounding environment. The projects will have to use locally sourced materials, easy to build constructive systems and be self-sufficient in terms of energy. They will have to be respectful with the local traditions and nature.

The program of the new learning center will be similar to that of a regular school. The goal of this competition is to create spaces that are flexible and can change their function if necessary.
The new learning center will have three classrooms, a kitchen, a multipurpose room, a childcare room, an office, a storage room and a bathroom. Outside, the learning center will contain an area for sports and outdoor activities, a space for a playground for the girls to play, which will encourage them to engage in physical activities.

· project site ·

The site is located in the town of Chivonguene, Mozambique. It has a rectangular shape of 35 x 60 meters. The main access to the plot comes from a road located at the Southern side of it.
The plot has 6 built structures, some of them are abandoned and others are being used. Participants can remove them or reuse some of them in the proposals.

Besides the buildings, in this space it is also possible to notice the existence of many fruit trees such as a mango, a cashew, a canhueiro and a sugar apple tree. The biggest one is the canhueiro (also known as marula tree), located in the North-Eastern side of the plot (upper left side in the image above). This one has to be preserved.
Click here to see the site on Google Maps.