'Home After Crisis' Competition / Architecture Design

The proposal seeks that after a deterritorialization generated by Boko Haram, a reterritorialization should occur, where the habitat should be the generator of it. In which the dwelling articulates material and symbolic planes in constant movement.

For this purpose, we seek to break with the hegemonic resolutions of housing that end up reducing the rural and local ways of living; instead, we aim to legitimize the diversity of current modes of life and their habitats.

Mainly to understand housing as a whole, where there are not only resting spaces but also spaces for daily practices and their social modes, such as those related to food and its production, as well as the spatial segmentation linked to family practices.

Finally, as the most crucial axis of the whole concept, we recognize that a home cannot exist unless the basic necessities of food and water are provided. As a result, the entire proposal is articulated through water, with the collection of it taking character in the many everyday routines.

Therefore, the proposal consists of a linear axis transferred into a resting space. On the other hand, there are two centralities, the primary axis of the proposal: first, the area for collecting water, which is necessary for food production; and then the space for elaborating it.

The plot is structured in a more public sector on one side, in front of the “zaure”, which aims to be for growth, livestock, and so forth. Another in the back, more intimate, destined for cleaning, housework, handicrafts, and cooking. The water is an articulator of all sectors of the house.

The material resolution of the proposal seeks efficiency, both material and climatic, with the lowest possible cost. It seems fundamental to us to propose solutions that require little maintenance afterward and offer the possibility of expansion in case the families need it.

At last, for the language of the proposal, we were inspired by the traditional houses of the communities through the use of the curve, which appears in the central points of the project: the water and the kitchen, and the use of color, typical of the local culture.