Kaira Looro 2022 for a Children's House in Africa: winners announced

The winners of Kaira Looro 2022 for a Children's House in Africa, held by humanitarian organisation Balouo Salo, have been announced.

The architecture requested in the call for entries, was a 250 square metre space intended to combat child malnutrition through the provision of nutritional material, the development of health and hygiene awareness programmes, the provision of paediatric and social care visits, accommodation for those at risk and the training of community nurses, who will be able to advise families on good prevention and nutrition practices.

The competition, announced in January 2022, was open to young architects, engineers and designers from all over the world. The design proposals were evaluated by an international panel of prestigious architects and firms including: Kengo Kuma (Kengo Kuma & Associates), Mario Cucinella (Mario Cucinella Architects), Agostino Ghirardelli (SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli), Benedetta Tagliabue & Ana Gallego (EMBT Miralles Tagliabue), Mphethi Morojele (MMA Design Studio), Alice Dietsch (AL_A), Giuseppe Mazzaglia (MVRDV), Sharon Devis (Sharon Davis Design), Ligia Nunes (Architecture Sans Frontières International ), Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani e Mohamed Amine Siana and the technical-scientific committee of Balouo Salo & Kaira Looro.

On 11 July, the organisation announced the 50 winning projects, which include 1st prize, 2nd prize, 3rd prize, 2 honourable mentions, 5 special mentions, 20 finalists and 20 Top 50.

The winning team will receive a cash prize of €5,000 and an internship at prestigious firm 'Kengo Kuma & Associates' in Tokyo, Japan. The runner-up will receive €2,000 and an internship at firm 'Mario Cucinella Architects' in Bologna, Italy. The third place winner will receive €1,000 and an internship at "SBGA - Blengini Ghirardelli" in Milan, Italy.

The winner of the 2022 edition is OPENNESS & ENCLOSURE by young Ziyu Guo from China.



The second prize was won by a team, also from China ,consisting of Shimin Zhou, Wanning Liao, Tianchen Xu, Hanyang Liu and Joseph Ongaco.





Third place was won by Nattaphon Worawanitchaphong from Thailand.





Two honourable mentions were given, one selected by Kengo Kuma and the other by organisation Balouo Salo, the teams are from China and Poland respectively. The first consists of Xizhou Chen, Chunlei Zhu. Whereas the second consists of Michał Pietrusiewicz.

Five special mentions were given to team projects from Italy, Brazil, Poland and China. The other winning projects were from Turkey, Germany, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Chile, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Korea, Colombia, Benin, Ivory Coast, the USA and Morocco.

In addition to raising the international community's awareness of emergency issues in developing countries, the competition also aimed to make young architects aware of the responsibilities of designers towards society, while also providing an opportunity for professional growth and international visibility to facilitate their entry into the job market, through the provision of prizes and internships at internationally renowned firms.

In keeping with the event's tradition, this year also the entire proceeds, from registration fees, will be donated to humanitarian organisation Balouo Salo. Specifically, this year's funds will be used to build the winning project and other interventions linked to the fight against child malnutrition, such as infrastructures to promote accessibility to drinking water. The winning architectural project will be studied and analysed in the coming months by Balouo Salo's team of humanitarian specialists in order to be integrated into the broader programme to combat child malnutrition, which includes training, awareness-raising and involvement of local communities and authorities.