Borboleta and Papagaio: Emergency Unit and Children’s Nutritional Center in Farim-Guinea-Bissau

Farim is a city on a deep fjord of the Atlantic Ocean in Guinea-Bissau. The Mission of Padri Oblati di Maria has operated there for many years and the research team has realized two units in recent years: Borboleta, which is an emergency unit for children but also for all those in need, and Papagaio, which is a nutritional center for young children. Due to the salt of the fjord (which also creates an economy), the atmosphere of the environment is typically saline so steel structures have been protected with special nanotechnologies (thanks to Triplex tech by NordZinc) for Borboleta. Papagaio is a nutritional center which provides food for the youngest groups of children who otherwise would have very few possibilities of survival. The structure of the pitched roof space has been developed with a transfer of technology from industrial scaffold elements transformed into columns and beams. Only one section becomes the rule of construction and the whole structure and sandwich panels roof were built in two weeks by volunteers connected to the Padri Oblati di Maria. After the mechanical erection, the envelope (realized in crude earth blocks and plaster) was completed by local people who in those years had been trained to learn basic masonry rules.