This Thursday January 8th, we welcome back former student Nerea Amoros for an open lecture on Participatory Building and Community Empowerment in Rwanda, where she has been working since graduating from our masters program.
Her talk will focus on the work developed over the last two years by her firm ASA, whose main goal is to empower communities through design. The company was founded by Nerea and Toma Berlanda, lecturers at the school of architecture in University of Rwanda (formerly known as KIST, the first school of architecture in Rwanda) with the aim of improving the educational and health facilities in the region. ASA’s work is based on engaging all stakeholders involved in the projects towards a successful participatory design. The team intends to design with and for the Rwandan communities, innovating with the existing local materials and techniques and learning from cultural behaviors in order to empower the people involved in the projects. The talk will give insights into the challenges, failures and successes of their work developed to date.
Her work was also featured in an exhibition titled Afritecture – Building Social Change at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Germany last year.