{"id":150484,"date":"2025-09-17T13:48:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/150484\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T13:48:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T13:48:09","slug":"urbanitree-uses-local-materials-for-african-flow-school-in-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/150484\/","title":{"rendered":"Urbanitree uses local materials for African Flow School in Cameroon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patterned walls of rammed-earth<\/a> bricks and carpentry in local hardwoods celebrate “ancestral materials and methods” at the African Flow School, a kindergarten<\/a> in Cameroon designed by Barcelona-based architecture studio Urbanitree.<\/p>\n

The 1,600-square-metre school on the outskirts of Yaound\u00e9 in Soa was designed for the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.<\/p>\n

\"AfricanThe African Flow School features rammed-earth brick walls<\/p>\n

The school occupies a U-shaped brick structure that surrounds a communal courtyard, which was designed based on the mission’s “flow” pedagogical model that uses spatial design to structure and inform learning.<\/p>\n

Guided by this, Urbanitree<\/a> approached the building itself as an “educational tool”, using ramme- earth bricks and azob\u00e9 \u2013 a termite-resistant local hardwood \u2013 for its structure, as well as other local hardwoods for the interiors such as sapele, movingui and doussie.<\/p>\n

\"AfricanThe kindergarten was built using low-carbon materials<\/p>\n

“We wanted the building itself to be part of the pedagogy \u2013 an educational tool rooted in local culture,” Urbanitree co-founder Vicente Guallart\u00a0told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“The main challenge was the construction culture: in Cameroon, ‘progress’ is often associated with concrete, while for us progress meant working with ecological, low-carbon materials,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“African Flow School demonstrates that progress can mean reconnecting with ancestral materials and methods, while aligning with global challenges such as climate change and urbanisation.”<\/p>\n

\"InteriorFour ecosystems informed the interior layout at the African Flow School<\/p>\n

In addition to its use of local materials, Urbanitree based the journey or “flow” through the school on four familiar ecosystems \u2013 mountain, village, savanna and forest \u2013 represented through the layout of classrooms and a series of sculptural forms.<\/p>\n

At the northern end of the school is the “mountain”, represented by a blocky, stacked structure built from local hardwood that can be both climbed over and entered as a grotto.<\/p>\n

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NTSA Architectes draws on “age-old know-how” for rammed-earth school extension\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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Alongside are the “savannah” and the “village”, where a space for group learning organised as a long, linear hall with stepped bench seating sits alongside a curved chapel.<\/p>\n

The journey ends in the “forest”, where a gridded, tree house-like structure can be inhabited by students as an elevated lookout point offering views across the courtyard.<\/p>\n

\"KindergartenStudents can climb inside a gridded timber structure<\/p>\n

Throughout, areas of perforated brickwork, clusters of small openings and gridded timber screens filter in light in a way that is reflective of these ecosystems, such as from above in the mountain area and dappled through a screen in the forest space.<\/p>\n

“Each environment evokes familiar cultural and natural references, fostering an emotional connection between the students and the spaces they inhabit,” said Guiallart.<\/p>\n

“In this way, architecture becomes the ‘third teacher,’ shaping learning through spatial experience,” he continued. “These spaces embody the idea that education can emerge from nature, community, and tradition.”<\/p>\n

\"AfricanThe U-shaped school wraps around a courtyard<\/p>\n

The neighbouring water tower, which serves the school, was built using a lightweight timber frame rather than the typical concrete, and is fitted with photovoltaic panels to help mitigate power outages.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Architectural Pioneering Consultants and Wolfgang Rossbauer also used local materials and methods for a school in Tanzania,<\/a> drawing on Montessori ideas of spatial learning.<\/p>\n

The photography is by Adri\u00e0 Goula<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patterned walls of rammed-earth bricks and carpentry in local hardwoods celebrate “ancestral materials and methods” at the African…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,549,75,79808,10701,2537,49626,49627],"class_list":{"0":"post-150484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-education","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-kindergartens","17":"tag-rammed-earth","18":"tag-schools","19":"tag-sectionall","20":"tag-sectionarchitecture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}