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.