An estimated 49 million people face acute food insecurity across the Sahel, and children bear the worst of it. The ethos of our project asks how physical environments and ecologies can work together to fight malnutrition and food insecurity in the community of Baghere, Senegal. We envisioned a facility centered on children, where families receive health checkups, gather and play, and where adults transfer agricultural and nutritional knowledge to the next generation. Site research revealed a climate that breaks the growing cycle from both ends: heavy rains from May through September flood fields and strip soil, while the remaining months bring sustained dry-season heat. The result is continuous agricultural stress year-round and severe nutrient depletion. The design needed to retain water on-site for a balanced irrigation cycle and structure a crop rotation schedule to rebuild soil between extremes.

The resulting design is a symbiotic relationship between physical structure and land, with water as the project's connecting fluid. The pavilion roof serves a dual purpose, creating a thermal stack effect that draws air through the space while capturing 274,323 gallons of rainwater per year. Without storage, that water would be lost to runoff during the May to September rains and unavailable when the crops need it most. The roofs funnel captured rainfall into a network of deep cisterns sized to hold 76,000 gallons, providing the irrigation supply that carries the food gardens through the dry season. Annual demand from the gardens averages 111,303 gallons, so capture comfortably exceeds need across the year. The cisterns also act as natural chillers as air is drawn around them, while the added vegetation lowers ambient temperatures across the site. Each pavilion forms a closed loop between human and natural ecologies: capturing rains to grow crops, then providing space for food preparation, digestion, and composting back into the gardens.

Crop rotation follows agronomic logic rather than variety for its own sake. Nitrogen-fixing legumes such as cowpea and peanut follow nitrogen-demanding crops to restore soil health, with millet, sorghum, and rice anchoring the staple cycle and a wider rotation of vegetables and fruits filling out the calendar. Site planting is selected for edible or medicinal value, opening the grounds for active agricultural use.

The site program is divided into three primary pavilions plus a fourth open-air tent for community gathering. Pavilion One is a health clinic, including a 20 m² pharmacy depot, nurse's station, treatment area, records storage, eight-person office, and an open training and lecture space where adults teach children agricultural and nutritional practices. Pavilion Two is a community kitchen where families can rest and eat together, with a community table, food prep area, fired brick oven, fresh water well, and an adjacent shaded children's play area. Pavilion Three holds private dormitory rooms sized for a second bed when a family member needs to stay with a patient, plus interstitial seating, a community table, and a fireplace for winter nights when temperatures drop below 20°C. Each pavilion is tailored to the site's environmental needs, using sun and wind orientation, a raised plinth that pre-cools incoming air, and a roof scoop above that draws it up and out.

While developing these passive strategies, we returned to regional construction precedents and asked how local materials could be used in contemporary ways. Woven small-bamboo mats serve as light shelves, shading the interior while bouncing daylight up and allowing air to pass through. (Large bamboo is protected in Senegal, so our material library is limited to small bamboo reeds.) The same reeds form louvered screens along the pavilion sides to filter solar gains, and a substructure for the thatch roof. Earth bricks form an oval raised footing, on which a skeleton of rosewood beams creates the pavilion's shell. The shell is supported by two earth brick columns, the cistern and the chimney, connected by a spine of welded light-gauge metal. Metal is used sparingly: the central spine, plus a single I-beam cut into halves to form a foot pedal at the base of each rosewood frame. Clear corrugated polycarbonate was chosen over corrugated metal for the spine's air scoop, bringing filtered daylight deep into the interior.

Dividing the program into four near-identical pavilions creates a structural motif that lets the construction crew learn while building the first and gain efficiency on each successive build. Within each pavilion, components are mirrored, allowing systemization and easy fabrication. Materials were sourced locally in Baghere, and the entire four-pavilion complex was built for €33,375 (main building €29,671 plus additional site building €3,703). At this cost and with this kit of parts, the design can be replicated elsewhere in the region, giving other communities a way to capture water year-round while gaining a beautiful gathering place. Inspired by local construction methods, the project's layered build (earth-block base, mud-finished walls, timber and thatch above) keeps construction familiar even as the structural form evolves into something new.