The objective of the competition is the creation of a “Women’s House” in southern Senegal, Africa.
Register: APR/30/2021, Submit: MAY/30/2021, Eligibility: Students, graduates, freelance professionals; individually, teams up to 5 members (at least one member must be between the ages of 18 and 35), Fee: 60 EUR (JAN/16 – FEB/28/2021), 90 EUR (MAR/01 – MAR/28/2021), 120 EUR (MAR/29 – APR/30/2021), Awards: 1st Prize: 5,000 EUR + construction + internship at Kengo Kuma & Associates, 2nd Prize: 1,000 EUR + internship at Miralles Tabgliabue EMBT, 3rd Prize: 500 EUR + internship at SBGA, 2 Honorable Mentions: 100 EUR each, 5 Special Mentions, 20 Finalists, 20 Top 50
The objective of the competition is the creation of a “Women’s House” in southern Senegal, Africa within a symbolic and environmentally friendly structure that is inspired by local traditions. A space in which associations and members of society will be able to meet and discuss the topics of equality and human rights, guaranteeing involvement and emancipation of the female community in favour of the region’s social, economic, and political development. Gender equality is, in fact, not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary condition for a prosperous world. Ensuring that everyone has equal access to education, medical care, and employment, as well as a presence in decision making processes, will promote a sustainable economy that benefits society and humanity as a whole.
Precisely because gender equality is crucial to the future of new generations, it is number five on the list of “Sustainable Development Goals” established by the United Nations for the purpose of eliminating all forms of discrimination and violence, safeguarding the rights of all genders, and providing social protection services, thus guaranteeing female participation at all levels of decision making.
Therefore, to promote this issue and safeguard women’s rights, the theme of the competition is a “Women’s House” which must integrate itself with the surrounding environmental and cultural context and promote the values of gender equality, reinterpreting them from the perspective of ecological and sustainable architecture that can be self-constructed with the local community.
SITE
The location of the project is southern Senegal, a country in northwest Africa on the Atlantic coast, bordering Mauritania, Mali, Gambia, and Guinea. The country has a population of 16 million people, concentrated primarily around the capital, Dakar. The southern region, south of Gambia, is known as Casamance due to the presence of the Casamance River, and is subdivided into three administrative regions: Ziguinchor, Sedhiou, and Kolda, with a total of 1.5 million inhabitants. The central region, where the project is to be developed, is Sedhiou.
This region, created in 2008, is one of the least developed in the country, with an average rate of urbanisation equal to 10% and a poverty rate of 92%. This region is prevalently agricultural and the villages have, on average, 1500 inhabitants. The capital of Sedhiou has a population of approximately 200,000 people.
PROJECT
The objective of the “Women’s House” is to host meetings, seminars, labs, and any other activity that could be useful in reducing forms of discrimination, strengthening and promoting gender equality, creating awareness and knowledge, and stimulating involvement by all parts of society. The project will be self-constructed with the benefiting community and will therefore need to meet certain construction criteria, such as:
- be easily built with sustainable technologies that can be adapted for self-construction and which do not require the use of heavy vehicles or complex machinery
- make use of natural and/or recycled materials available in the area so as to limit the environmental and economic impact caused by transport of materials and to generate revenue within the local context
- be integrated with the socio-cultural context of the area by reinterpreting and respecting its traditions
The structure will need to accommodate the following activities, which will correspond to certain areas that have been designed to be independent from or connected to one another, depending on the concept of the designer.
- Management and Organisation. The structure will need to have an administrative space in order to allow for the management and organisation of activities.
- One of the project’s objectives is to encourage communication between institutions and associations in the area. Therefore, there will need to be a space in which to hold meetings that can accommodate a maximum of 10-15 people.
- Collective Activities. The fundamental objective of the project is to promote gender equality and human rights through the organisation of awareness raising activities, seminars, labs, and exhibitions. These activities will need to have a flexible space at their disposal, one that meets their individual needs and makes it possible for them to potentially be conducted simultaneously.
The structure will need to respect the following characteristics:
- maximum closed area of 200 square meters, where the aforementioned activities will be conducted
- only a ground floor
- architectural spaces must be flexible and adaptable
- cost of construction materials must not exceed 18,000 €
- favour the use of natural materials which are available in the surrounding area and the use of recycled and scrap materials
- promote sustainable and environmentally friendly construction technologies
- be easily self-constructed
- adopt solutions which favour the reuse of natural resources.
CONSTRUCTION
The winning architectural project will be built in the village of Baghere, in Senegal. The choice of materials and technologies must be consistent with the principles of sustainability and self-construction, in that the project will be built by volunteers as part of a humanitarian initiative alongside associations and the benefiting communities. This approach will be crucial to encouraging appropriation of the project and for associating it with educational activities on environmentally friendly and sustainable construction technologies that are capable of preserving the environment, responding to climate change, and improving quality of life.
Creating a project that uses local materials which are accessible to all, both from a financial and logistical standpoint, is important to ensuring that the technology can be acquired and reproduced by the community in order to encourage the development of the villages.
website | kairalooro.com |