By DANYAL HUSSAIN FOR MAILONLINE
A stunning boarding school on the edge of the Amazon that caters to the children of rural farm workers in Brazil has been named the best new building in the world.
The Children Village was designed by Brazilian architects Aleph Zero + Rosenbaum and is based near huge rice fields in the Tocantins province, around 370 miles north east of Brasília.
The slick new school is largely made from locally-sourced timber and natural resources surrounding the site in a bid to promote both economic and environmental sustainability.
And it has had a huge impact, winning the prestigious RIBA International Prize 2018 despite competing against 199 other locations from 16 countries all over the world.
The prestigious prize is awarded every two years and rewards the most inspirational and significant new structures from across the globe.
From dormitories and reading spaces to balconies and hammocks, parts of the stylish Children Village were designed in collaboration with the students, to make them feel part of the project.
Technically, the buildings are a pair of boarding house but they are mirror images of each other, meaning they both get the award.
Aleph Zero is a young Brazilian practice led by Gustavo Utrabo and Pedro Duschenes.
They worked in collaboration on the interiors of the buildings, with Marcelo Rosenbaum, a Brazilian designer and television host.
Elizabeth Diller, chair of the 2018 RIBA International Prize jury, told CNN: ‘The best new building in the world needs to wake us out of our everyday stupor to something challenging that teaches us why architecture is still relevant.’
The Children Village perfectly meets the criteria and caters for up to 540 students in its dormitories.
In its drive to open up to the land surrounding it, the school has no air conditioning or glazing and educated children that are local to area.
It also allows students who live on distant settlements and ranches to study there.
They live in vast, stylish dormitories that are clustered in nine groups of five brick buildings that are based around beautiful, leafy large courtyards filled with vegetation and trees.
The dormitories house six children, aged between 13 to 18, giving each one plenty of space to enjoy relax in comfort.
Each dorm has storage space, laundry room, showers and toilets with stairs also leading to play areas, reading rooms and TV areas that are out in the open but protected from the weather by timber screens.
There are also hammocks for students to relax in and raised walkways that give you beautiful views of the leafy school campus.
Another RIBA judge, Gloria Cabral, also praised the buildings, describing them as ‘really pertinent, appropriate for this place, for this culture, for this weather, these landscapes and at the same time an example for all the world.’
UK judge Peter Clegg added that the building is an example of a ‘really beautiful building where everything is well considered, and it’s very low cost, very low carbon, very creative and a beautiful set of living spaces for these very lucky children.’
