Kaira Looro Architecture Competition: Children's House

Kaira Looro Architecture Competition: Children's House now is over!

Kaira Looro Architecture Competition: Children's House: Balouo Salo, through its Kaira Looro non-profit initiative organizes the Kaira Looro 2022: Children's House, an international architecture competition for students and young architects that promotes equality and combats discrimination.

Short description

Kaira Looro Architecture Competition is a design contest open to students and young architects with aims to discover new talents and to adopt sustainable architecture models for humanitarian purpose to improve life conditions in developing countries.

The challenge of 2022's edition is to design a ‘Children’s House’ in Senegal, as a warm and welcoming place where activities aimed at preventing child malnutrition can be carried out in a rural environment.

Today, 149 million children in the world suffer from growth retardation resulting from nutritional difficulties caused by poverty, conflicts and the environmental crisis. An adequate diet, especially in the first 5 years of life, means facilitating the psychological and physical development necessary to develop all of the fundamental abilities to participate in social life. For these reasons, the 2022 edition of the Kairo Looro competition has chosen the selection and construction of a ‘Children’s House’ to accommodate monitoring and assistance activities for children at risk of malnutrition as its objective. This will be their contribution to the second objective of the Sustainable Developments ‘Zero Hunger by 2030’ Goals. The architecture of the ‘Children’s House’ will be a space intended to prevent child malnutrition by providing nutritional material, the development of hygiene and healthcare awareness raising programmes, the organisation of paediatric and social care appointments, housing for at-risk patients, and the training of community nurses, who will guide local families on best practice in relation to prevention and nutrition. The design will be constructed in the context of a humanitarian programme, with a team of volunteers and with the participation of the beneficiary community, it should therefore meet some particular construction need.

➜ be easily built with sustainable technologies - that can be adapted for self-construction and which do not require the use of heavy vehicles or complex machinery;

➜ make use of natural and/or recycled materials - available in the area so as to limit the environmental and economic impact caused by transport of materials and to generate revenue within the local context;

➜ be integrated - into the social and cultural environment of the location.

The architecture will need to host the following activities, to which the designed areas must independently correspond or relate to one another depending on the designer’s idea:

➜ Administration - There will need to be an area, for a maximum of 8 people, intended for filing, and for managing and organising activities.

➜ Hospitality - Children’s medical examinations will be carried out in this area and, in cases where they are at risk, it should be possible to offer hospitality to facilitate monitoring and care.

➜ Recreation - While children are being monitored and cared for, the psychological aspect is also important.

The submissions will be evaluated by an international jury made up of: Kengo Kuma (KKAA), Mario Cucinella (MCA), Agostino Ghirardelli (SBGA), Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT), Mphethi Morojele (MMA), Alice Dietsch (ALA), Giuseppe Mazzaglia (MVRDV), Sharon Devis, Ligia Nunes (ASF International), Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani, Mohamed Amine Siana and an scientific committee.

Winners will be announced on 11th July 2022.

Who may enter?

Kaira Looro Architecture Competition is open to young architects, students, designers and anyone who wants to propose a solution to the competition theme