Case study

The Polyvalent Cultural Centre is a community-based, educational institution located in this southernmost village of Senegal. The centre serves as a platform for cultural exchange, artistic expression, and community development activities. It is a hub for the preservation and promotion of the diverse cultural heritage, including music, dance, storytelling, and traditional crafts.12

The centre is based in a modern, environmentally-inclusive building that incorporates sustainable design principles, such as the use of renewable energy sources and locally sourced materials, principles associated with the realisation of humanitarian architectural projects. ‘From bricklayers to women and volunteer participation will show a learnable technology for a sustainable development’ 13, the project aims to improve living conditions via the building process. The facility includes ‘five one-story buildings with a museum, offices, training rooms, and a developed yard for outdoor activities and local community meetings’.14 The facility was built by Balouo Salo, a non-profit organization.15 These NGOs often are the providers of humanitarian architecture funding and, as noted by Livesay in the article ‘Social Capital in Senegal: Bane or Boom?’, have the ability to fund projects like this and ‘link top and bottom’ due to their intermediary societal positions between government and citizens; providers and consumers.16

The building was constructed mostly using locally sourced natural materials such as laterite soil, clay, sand, polypropylene bags, plastic film, wood, recycled ceramics, straw, and cut grass. The construction process utilized low-tech techniques inspired by vernacular architecture (referring to a style of construction based on local traditions, materials and techniques, and reflects the needs and values of the local people). The specialists involved used it as an opportunity to integrate and educate the local community in sustainable low-tech construction techniques, strengthening the identification of future users with the new facility and equipping the local community with new skills to gradually improve knowledge and living conditions in their environment.17 ,