Architecture holiday studio in Malawi

The overall proposal is to work and spend time together, students and teachers, during five days at the MUBAS campus in Blantyre.  As you walk through the Chitawira neighborhood in Blantyre you come to a disruption in the grid and the order of things, of the public space. In front of us is a square, blocking the street. Or rather, a grassy square area with some trees and a faint footpath in the middle. A paradise. An island. An obstacle. This green space splits the street in two. It is a kind of refuge for many: vendors sit under the generous shade of the lush trees and lovers’ picnic in the seclusion of the long grass. But how did this beautiful, peaceful place come to be? How can we approach it? What fantastic gardens and architecture does it inspire us to create? How can one interact but leaving it untamed, unnoticed and fruitful?  Chitawara is a rather central quiet residential neighborhood. It has no small-scale public spaces to linger. The streets are defined by lanes for cars, very narrow grassy walkways, which hardly anyone can use, and the perimeter walls of the houses. In this context the small still unnamed island appears as an error of planning, as if someone oversaw some valuable plot. Or, this and perhaps others that have already disappeared into greedy hands were really planned as resting places? Or is it a contaminated area?

The winter school Thengo la Chikondi turned around this place. We got to know it, to apprehend it, and took it with us as a scale for the production of architecture. 

with the collaboration of sambirani chirwa, grace khumalo and kelvin kalua

and work by: patience chirwa, mussa simama chiwisa, chioma dimgba, llian khanje, annelise kocherani, olivia limunga, constance mualuka, dennis mwiba, samuel nhlema, tamandani thawani

supported by erasmus +, the institute for art and architecture of the academy of fine arts in vienna and the school of built environment / MUBAS.