African Design Magazine November 2014 | Page 15

News Acknowledgement prize: White Canvas, Bassikounou, Mauritania The project takes on the difficult task to provide public amenities in refugee camps. The proposal for a health centre and school was specifically developed for the Mbera refugee camp in southeast Mauritania of more than 70,000 people. Tent structures form the basic units for the school and health centre facilities. Phase Change Material (PCM) accumulators are used for air-conditioning to create liveable and safe conditions without additional energy requirements. NEXT GENERATION FIRST PRIZE: Fika Patso Dam, South Africa Bio-mimicry drives this design concept, learning from nature’s regulating processes to inspire an understanding of architecture in sync with the environment. The project aims to amalgamate the land mass and bodies of water with a dam constructed on existing pillars to form a hybrid landscape. The building evolves into a kind of living creature or organism with a roof-like structure opening or closing according to the seasonal rainfall. NEXT GENERATION SECOND PRIZE: Agadir, Morocco An earthquake devastated Agadir in 1960. The fortified town on the hill was entirely destroyed and the site abandoned. The project establishes a place of contemplation in memory of the 15,000 residents who died in the earthquake. The scheme incorporates a memorial on the site and an archaeological museum retracing the history of the city. The building, integrates the ruins of the fortification wall, establishing a dialogue between the old and the new, between the past and the present africandesignmagazine.com 15