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Children Village of Bodoquena
Children Village of Bodoquena.
In the border with Bolivia and Paraguay lies the Pantanal, a continuous and vast floodplain spanning 250,000 square kilometers. With its clay soil, this majestic biome of intense colors and monumental scale is a complex aquifer system filled with crystalline, limestone-rich waters. It is in this remote location that the Fundação Bradesco's second boarding school is based. Established in the 1980s, it has since served thousands of children from the region. Today, the school provides education, meals, lodging, and all other necessary care for approximately 800 children at a time, all from low-income families.
Since their construction, the Bodoquena dormitories had undergone extensive maintenance and were in need of a new approach, as certain characteristics of their original design no longer met Fundação Bradesco's standards of excellence. To meet these goals, the renovation of the existing dormitories was conceived with an eye toward greater comfort, energy efficiency, privacy, reuse of the existing structures, and improved accessibility to the dormitories during rainy periods. For this restructuring, a system of covered walkways was used to connect the twenty-four existing buildings into two independent clusters. The placement of these walkways respected both the geometry of the pre-existing central courtyards and the paths children had worn into their daily routines. As a result of overlaying these two approaches, new courtyards for communal use took shape, along with complementary programs positioned at the ends of the new complex.
To achieve precise execution and a construction process that was efficient both structurally and economically, a system of measurements was devised, with the relationship between the dormitories' existing openings as its primary dimension. This single, constant measurement, consistent across all the dormitories, made it possible to design a prefabricated system (in concrete and steel) of repeated, standardized parts. This system made it possible both to achieve the precision so necessary and so difficult to attain in a place as remote as Bodoquena, and to lend scale to what seemed to have none: the immensity of the local plain. It is the repetition of a constant measurement and of vertical supports that reveals the scale of the site and the gradual transformation of the topography.
Supported by the vertical markers of this system of measurements, two continuous horizontal lines connect the existing buildings. Above them, the new roofs of the dormitories stand out, independent of the existing structure, and with a single slope, hover at the highest point of the building. These inclined planes allow not only for constant ventilation of the dormitories but also create a visual interplay, appearing to merge together from a distance while becoming independent as one draws closer to the building. The shaping of this new architectural condition made possible not only a new dialogue between building and landscape, but above all, a better quality of life for the children.
Authors Gustavo Utrabo, Pedro Duschenes, Adriana Benguela, and designer Marcelo Rosenbaum
Team – Beatriz Rocha, Denis Joelsons, Luís Eduardo Maranha.
Client - Fundação Bradesco
Consultants:
Structural-Companhia de Projetos (Heloisa Maringoni);
Landscape - Raul Pereira Arquitetos Associados;
Light Design - Lux Projetos Luminotécnicos;
Mechanical Eletrical - GRAU Engenharia; Acoustic - Ambiental Consultoria;
Concrete floor - LPE Engenharia;
Drainage System - Eng. Davi Moura e CONTAG Engenharia;
Visual comunication - PS2 + Andrés Sandoval;
Windows - Crescêncio Petrucci Jr Engenharia; Waterproofing - Proassp; Irrigation - Hidrossistemas; General contractor - Construcione; Construction manager - Metroll;
Location: Miranda, Mato Grosso do Sul - Brazil
Design year 2017 - Construction year 2020
Area 16.333,52 m2
Photography: Jesus Granada
Photography BW: Gustavo Utrabo