IRMA BARON - Designing the void: a step towards resilience
Team members: Nicolas Brigand, Louis Lambert, Jean-Philippe Sureau and Victor Wichrowski
This proposal is a comprehensive and integrated project, centered on a new school at the core of Irma Baron village, in Central African Republic.
This village is representative of the conflict affecting the country since 2013, and witnessed several waves of violence that reached their peak in February 2014. Back there, around 50% of the dwellings/shelters were burned and destroyed during a critical attack. Following which all the inhabitants fled the village, and did not return until April 2014. Currently, 90% of the population has returned in Irma Baron, with the firm intention to rebuild its former life environment.
in this context, we tried to implement a project stimulating the local community, by giving them opportunites to resume and improve their daily life, and by placing education at the forefront of the reconstruction process.
This school offers an adapted infrastructure, making good use of local ressources and taking into consideration the particular climate of the area.
A specific effort has been led to bring safe water to the school since the population doesn’t have access to any protected water sources in the village.
However, we aim at offering more than a school building with this project -which should be seen as a system rather than a finished object.
The issue at stake here is to suggest a new model, based on voids, promoting resilience and shaping the public space.
The project revolves around a number of key concepts, such as the water management, the inclusion of social gardenning, the development of the local economy through a market design.
The development of all these satellites will result from the convergence between the technical expertise of the design team and the local will and needs raised by the community itself.
