Architects:Semillas

Area:596m²

Year:2023

Photographs:Eleazar Cuadros

Lead Architect:Marta Maccaglia

Category:Schools

Team Lead:Giulia Perri

Design Team:Susanna Olivieri, Fiorella Mendoza, Giulia Panto, Federica Coveri, Denisse Covasinne, Chiara Bonfiglio, Arianna Bordignon

Site Manager:Angela Yangali

Engineering And Consulting > Structural:Gustavo Tello

Engineering And Consulting > Other:Benjamín Mauricio Villavicencio

Engineering And Consulting > Electrical:Gustavo Tello Pantoja

General Construction:Municipalidad distrital de Pangoa

Financing:Municipalidad Distrital de Pangoa, Ministerio Federal de Cooperación Económica – Alemania (BENGO), Ein Herz für Kinder

Co Financing:Municipalidad Provincial de Satipo, Comunidad Nativa San Antonio de Sonomoro

Developer:We-Building

City:San Martín de Pangoa

Country:Peru

Text description provided by the architects. The school is located in the native community of Sonomoro, territory of the Nomatsigenga ethnic group in the central jungle of Peru and arises as part of a community process to provide early education for more than 70 boys and girls. The school is situated in a central location within the community and integrates into the daily dynamics of the territory, seeking to value local ways of inhabiting and learning through spatial experience.

The architectural organization is structured in two main blocks. The administrative and multi-purpose block is located to the northwest of the lot, near the main road, and contains: a teacher's lounge, a community kitchen, a multi-purpose room configured as a wall-less classroom, and sanitary facilities. This volume establishes a direct relationship with the access, which consists of a welcoming plaza toward the street, composed of a green area with a large bench and a shaded area through trees. A large curved fence made of wooden slats separates the urban center from the school and leads into the school through a semicircular walkway that embraces an orange grove in the middle and toward the northeast of the lot, leading to the block of three classrooms.

Each classroom, on one side, connects to an outdoor area allowing the expansion of pedagogical activities to a garden; and on the other side maintains a direct relationship with the circular orange courtyard. The outdoor areas infiltrate organically in all directions, and adjacent to the multi-purpose room is an amphitheater, creating a continuous educational landscape.

The bioclimatic approach is developed from passive strategies adapted to the Amazonian climate: pyramidal wooden roofs that favor the evacuation of heavy rains, permanent cross ventilation through louvered surfaces at the top of the walls, controlled natural lighting through skylights, and shaded intermediate spaces that allow for continuous use during the day. The main structure is built with reinforced concrete, while the partitions incorporate handcrafted clay bricks, wooden carpentry, and polycarbonate partitions and windows that allow light and ventilation to pass through.

Participatory workshops, shared tours with mothers, teachers, authorities, and children allowed for the recognition of outdoor spaces, local culture, and learning together with nature as an inspirational source for architectural form and programmatic organization.

Conceived as an educational ecosystem where learning occurs through movement, play, and direct relationship with nature. Children roam, explore, observe, and learn within an environment that recognizes the forest as an active part of the pedagogical process. The architecture supports the construction of identity from childhood and strengthens the link between education and territory, affirming the right of each community to learn from its own cultural and environmental context.

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