On January 24, the fifth edition of World Education Day was celebrated under the theme “Invest in People, Prioritize Education”.
Declared by the United Nations General Assembly,
it fosters a strong political mobilization that seeks to chart the way and accelerate progress towards the fourth sustainable development goal: quality education.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) says:
“Currently, 244 million children and youth are out of school and 771 million adults are illiterate.
Their right to education is being violated and is unacceptable. It is time to change education.”
A quality education means an investment in quality engineering to accompany it.
For this reason, we have selected some inspiring examples of educational architecture in Latin America.
Mexico
Rural Primary Schools / Gutiérrez Arquitectos + Escobedo Soliz
As a result of the earthquake that occurred on September 19, 2017 with its epicenter in San Felipe Ayutla Puebla,
cities and towns in the center of the country were badly affected.
In the state of Puebla alone, more than 200 public schools, most of them rural, were badly damaged.
Two months after this event, construction of rural elementary schools was called for in the communities of Santa Isabel Cholula and San Martin Tlamapa, where the schools had been destroyed.
Brazil
Children’s Village / Rosenbaum + Zero
The immensity of the Brazilian tropical savannah, the infinity of the sky, and popular lore.
It is the continuous, broad, and thin imaginary line in the background that welcomes the journey and knowledge of Brazilians living in the central region of the country.
And the structure proposed there could not be different from such a conformation.
It is the vastness that touches us, along with the beauty of the people who live there.
However, how will that architecture characterized by memories, techniques,
aesthetics and rhythms become relevant to this site?
How do you deal with this site where the current culture is updated and refrains from any memory of a reproduced dream?
How do you step into a place characterized by the manual labor of farming and indigenous nature?
Argentina
Tempo Almafuerte / Además arquitectura
This is an intervention for a school in a precarious environment, introduced in the outskirts of Buenos Aires:
the 9 de April district of Buenos Aires Province.
The committee was set up by the family that runs the school,
which asked the company executing the project to provide a solution to access some of the classrooms on the upper level.
Although the requirement was a staircase,
the access point and the relationship with the main courtyard for all levels of the school provided multiple opportunities.
Colombia
29 de Noviembre Reconstructing the School / Taller Síntesis
Colegio 29 de Noviembre is an educational institution built in 2010 in the city of Nueva Colonia, in Turbo, Colombia.
One of the few public infrastructures in a city with high poverty rates and deficiencies at all levels in public services, roads, housing, etc.
The conditions in which children studied, in addition to the expansion of existing facilities.
Chile
Millieres Country School / GVAA + BVA
The school relies on a compact volume generated from its own central ‘courtyard’.
This space is defined as a projected meeting place for the community,
a multi-purpose space in which the service programs and the teaching area of the school are transformed,
Which reduces the circulation surfaces and increases the square meters of the proposed area.
From this point the volume takes on its greatest height as it goes out to seek natural light,
a kind of wink to Mapuche Roca and its chimneys,
In this case, the chimney is replaced with a V/S Light fire louver.
The importance of this space lies in the multiple functions of its program,
the establishment of the school as a community meeting center, and the fire pit is the space itself.
Peru
Alto Anabati Nursery / Semillas
The Alto Anapati nursery project is located in the Nomatsigenga indigenous community in the Central Jungle of Peru.
The school, which was established in 2008, was in perilous conditions and at risk of flooding.
In 2021, thanks to funding from the local government and international cooperation, the project will become a reality.
It provided access to education for more than 50 children, as well as community space for 86 families.
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