Dar DouarEducation and empowerment

In Idoukalen, in the Aït Bouguemez Valley, a preschool classroom and an educational centre support learning and transmission, in collaboration with local actors.

Dar Douar — “the house of the village” — is a school and a small library designed to adapt to several villages of the Aït Bouguemez Valley. The project sits along the roads, the only constant element from one site to another, and offers a library with corridor-like proportions that follows the movement of residents and becomes a social space, inspired by the ceremonial salon of the Amazigh house.

Alongside the library is a small kitchen, where mothers accompanying their children can prepare a meal. However modest, this space makes the school a meeting place for women.

The architectural vocabulary reinterprets that of the Amazigh house of the Aït Bouguemez. Priority is given to traditional techniques: rammed-earth walls and structural timber. Depending on altitude, the share of stone increases to withstand the harshness of the climate.

A courtyard planted with an apple tree links the classroom and the library. The project, oriented towards women and children, welcomes all generations of the village and remains open to their needs.