Mayukwayukwa Refugee Camp: a sustainable development center in Zambia.
Equipe: Júlia Oliveira Rodrigues, Larissa Saori Nakahata Figueiredo, Raul Comelli Pizzato e Yasmim Yukari Yamada.
Located near Kaoma in Zambia, the Sustainable Development Center in Mayukwayukwa will be the embodiment of community experiences. Not just a place for shelter or learning, but a place for practicing and experiencing a new living.The snail carries its own shelter, and does not travel without its shell, so goes the Yoruba proverb.
From this perspective, the Center for Sustainable Development builds itself from the spiraling shelter that is carried in our journey, along with a game of volumes and free space that values the vernacular. The inner focus of the spiral allows exercising self-management, working as a center point that encourages everyone's participation in the daily life of the settlement, in addition to enhancing their self-sufficiency and reinforcing the sense of belonging that will be established and nourished.
Within the spiral, the space and activities are divided in different buildings, allowing the project to be constructed in phases the multipurpose classrooms; kitchen and bathrooms; and finally, the bedrooms - and as a result, the creation of open and intimate spaces that converge to an internal patio, being the element that brings cohesion to the project.
In one of the patios, there is the main access to the Development Center, which in addition to articulating the learning spaces and the kitchen, works as a focal point for the development of a vegetable garden that uses conservation agriculture in it’s practice to increase soil fertility - thus increasing the amount of green areas -, and the more secluded patio for the use of the six bedrooms, around an existing tree.
The Development Center translates its ideas to its materiality, reinforcing the need to use local and easy-to-build materials, so that the reproduction of the construction method is viable, encouraging a self management housing production Following this principle, blocks enriched with straw (to increase their resistance) are used on an exposed baldrame beam 50 cm high - to prevent moisture from rising through capillarity. The wall openings that extend from the baldrame beams to the trussed rafters are composed of windows that allow ventilation and the use of sunlight, with a section designated for storage.
The structure that supports the roof is made from wooden logs that hold the gabled roof covered with thatch. Having as a fundamental concept to maintain the constructive tradition of the region, and its culture, in addition to creating a form that the residents themselves can execute.
