JELI - JELI
Learning by Doing
Starting from the question, can architecture provide an educational experience linked to the culture and territory of Mandingo?
We believe that the architecture-user relationship is no longer based merely on the dichotomy of place and use, but is now understood as a joint and active system directly related to experience and the senses, facilitating the implementation of various actions that allow adaptation to the cultural, social and economic context, as well as the natural processes of the ecosystem.
In this way we have come to understand the project not only as a school but as that Jeli-J el i, the place within the community where children, teachers, the elderly and mothers come together to learn and experiment together. The project is located on the outskirts of the city of Marssasum, an Islamic religious community with a very marked variety of customs, but with a very poor social stratum. Ninety-five percent of the women I sent work at home. This marks an almost general dropout rate for all girls, since their mothers teach them from a very young age how to take care of their homes.
HOW to build an adequate space for the promotion of Knowledge in the Mandé territory?
We are based on 6 principles for the construction of the school: passive thermal conditioning, water capture and reuse of waste, food production, use of endemic and recycled materials, a basic but efficient structure seeking the optimization of resources and mainly empowerment from the user where the community is constantly involved in the school program. The school is planted around the existing tree, both at the entrance and in the common spaces: the play and eat platform, the kitchen (program with the children's mothers), the dry toilets, the water well (collection cistern) , the library, the farm and the teachers' area), are placed on the basis of the constan! appreciation of the tree as a computing element. Each classroom has its own greenhouse garden, all connected by a drip irrigation system. this with the idea of teaching about the care of nature and sustainable production.
This is how we have been able to propose this intervention together with an illustrated construction manual for easy understanding and reproduction of the project. A basic intervention but with the aim of generating spaces for articulation between children and the community through collective action.
Contest organized by Archstorming.
Members: Byron Cadena, Carlos Valverde, Kevin Guerrero and Carlos Larios.
December 2020. Marssasum, Senegal.