Montesori-Tosepan | Cafeína Design

Colaborators: Leonardo Neve, Diego Vilatela

Structural Project: Omar Huerta

Photographs:  Leonardo Neve, Patrick Lopez.

Situated in Cuetzalan, Puebla. At a privileged location, surrounded by a coffee plantation and white cedar trees, the school´s main target was to be welcoming for the local indigenous kids, low maintenance and at the same time shelter all the needs of these trilingual institution for teaching in English, Nahuatl, and Spanish. The project`s goal is to have a direct integration with nature, because of the practical way education is thought. The activities include to take care of the coffee plantation, agriculture, farm animals, besides the knowledge thought in the class room.

The materials chosen for the construction were: Adobe, stone, and bamboo, for being easy to get in the area and also for the relatively high amount of labor it triggers.  

The school was planned in two phases because of the lack of economic resources to build the 2 levels of the project from the beginning. So in the first year, the first level was built, and at the next year, with the school in operation, the second level was built. With the school in operation. These implied many design and technical constructive challenges.