Education is the most effective tool that a country can use to reduce its social and economic inequalities, as by investing in the training of its citizens it promotes the development of the territory and empowers future interventionists in the social, political and structural environment. Thus, comes DA ESCOLA PARA A COMMUNIDADE, a Final Master's Project that intends to study practical and executable solutions that offer an underprivileged community the opportunity to study and learn.

The developed proposal is inserted in the territory of Mozambique, more specifically in the district of Inhambane. Surrounded by a rural environment, the community of Inharrime depends on subsistence agriculture and local commerce, which is a context that lacks social and monetary investment. Reinventing traditional vernacular methods, the Escola de Ocuana project engages Mozambican culture using architecture as a manifestation.

The project's methodology followed the construction method and the essence of the Mozambican way of life, responding to the project's initial objectives: the proposal for an educational facility, a housing module and its urban context. The creative process was developed from the understanding of different scales, starting from the scale of the object until reaching the scale of the city.

The Equipment supports the construction of an integrated structure for the entire community, taking into account the needs of the place, responding to them in a phased and concrete way. Divided into seven building phases, the Ocuana School was designed with local materials easily accessible to the community in mind, such as adobe brick. Elements of Mozambican culture also appear, such as rotating panels, which readapt weaving techniques from the Thonga culture, giving them a new architectural function. Recognizing the potential of an educated and informed people, this project takes advantage of participatory architecture as a way of integrating the proposal into the place, and also as an educational and development moment.

By readapting constructive techniques from Mozambican culture, the architectural proposal aims to solve a social and infrastructural problem, offering a physical space that not only empowers the community at an intellectual level, but also promotes spaces for meeting and interacting with it, with this project also being a point of starting point for the sustainable development of Mozambican society.

More info at

https://casasparaumplanetapequeno.fa.ulisboa.pt/ENG/projects-and-thesis/23_mocambique.html

Image: From the School to the Community, (source: by the author, 2020)