Encontros entre o global e o local: a poética construtiva híbrida na arquitetura de Francis Kéré

Abstract

This work aims to analyze Francis Kéré’s tectonic perspective with a view to the expressiveness of hybrid technologies, focusing on three of the four projects that comprise Gando Primary School Complex:GandoPrimarySchool(2001);GandoPrimarySchoolExtension(2008)andGando Primary School Library (2010 - Under construction). Amid the socio-environmental crisis, contemporary architects have been required to adopt design practices that are more responsive to the site of insertion. Thus, some architects have sought a reciprocal interaction between local and global production, in which the advantages of production are combined as an alternative to the universalist tendencies. These encounters are called hybridization. In this scenario, Francis Kéré stands out by exploring hybrid technologies, reflecting his social and environmental commitment to the local population, while promoting a harmonious integration between architecture and its surroundings. The research is also based on the concept of tectonic in the architectural project to address the expressiveness resulting from the relationship between the formal architecture structure, the site and the constructive aspects, starting from the design process.Based on this, the analytical parameters under which the selected works studied are defined. Redesign is adopted as a research tool, enabling the investigation of the projects’ compositional structure and making explicit their tectonic details and articulations. The research is descriptive and exploratory in nature, adopting a qualitative approach. It comprises the stages of a bibliographic review, a documentary survey, the application of analytical parameters, and, finally, a discussion of possible adaptations and reproductions of hybrid techniques in the contemporary architectural solutions developed by the architect. The result demonstrates the potential of combining hybrid technical and expressive solutions, exploring both global and local modes of production, as an innovative architectural response resistant to cultural homogenization, present in Kéré’s projects. The duality between the artisanal and the industrial, as well as between the tectonics of heaviness and lightness, resonates throughout all the projects analyzed, assuming a central role in their architectural language. Kéré explores the poetic dimension of architecture through the integration of material, cultural, and aesthetic aspects in the formal result.