African project
Hostels for Hope – Tanzania
close to the Victoria Lake. The idea for project research is born from the desire
to respect and recreate the characteristics of the rural areas of sub-Saharan
Africa, present place of majority guests for the future hostel. The study of the
characteristic organization and the type of households in rural areas is the
starting point of the project, these are made ​​up of different units protected by a
fence or a borderline defined.
The project stems from a single square regular module of two dimensions: 8 x
8m (64 square metres) for public space and 6x6m (36 square meters) for private
space (rooms for guests and staff). The volume of the monolithic module is
characterized by high walls and massive mono – textural walls opening in
the roof and allowing the diffusion of the scattered light into the interior, hair
circulation and cross ventilation.
The aggregation of these modules and the strong distinctive unifying element
contribute to form the hostel architecture definition and the delimitation and
creation of architectural space. A linear platform/cover with parallel floor/
concrete plate, as a sandwich panel, join and connect the volumes in a single
element, but dynamic and flexible.
The units will be assembled under a cover/plate, which becomes new virtual
security fence, but at the same time performs precise bioclimatic and energy
functions. The cover plate generates protected areas, allows the management
and flow distribution, ensures community life and filters the public and
private areas while protecting the privacy of the hostel guests; at the same
time it connects together the paths of the units and rooms that open to the
landscape, as an African rural village.
The cover respects the modules, which emerge with their characteristic top.
The arrangement of the units under the common plate allows a strong space
flexibility and transparency to both transverse and longitudinal directions,
generating different perspective views to the landscape and especially towards
the Victoria Lake.
The volumes projected for sanitary facilities (latrines) and technological
systems (back-up generators and waste recycling) are organize efficiently
along major routes but far from the rooms occupied by guests, in order
to control the infections problems. Especially, the latrines were designed
according to the standards and guidelines laid down by the UNHCR
(Institutional Latrines).
The main building materials are chosen with the intention of engaging the
community through the construction process: all the load-bearing masonry of
the modules are made of bricks manufactured on site using local materials and
assembled by native labour force (bricks will be made with an experimental
blend of local material).
All paths converge toward the plate and the common spaces that are created
under it: in this way the areas where the main flows intersect become meeting,
socialization and sharing places.
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