We are talking about a large educational complex for the country's main university: the authorities have allocated a plot of 2,000 hectares south of Luanda for its construction, and the campus should become a key element of the city's development in this direction. Initially, it was about a 17,000 student campus and Perkins + Will developed a masterplan, but then customers asked for a future capacity increase to 40,000 students.
The first stage of the University campus with a total area of 32.5 thousand m2 cost 175 million US dollars, the second, although twice as much, will cost 150 million. This ambitious construction program became a necessity because after the end of the civil war in 2002, Angola is experiencing the economic recovery, the population is growing rapidly, and the number of students is also increasing, although in 2000 there were only 9,100 of them. The University of Agostinho Neto has branches throughout the country, but it is the new capital's campus that is intended to become a national educational center.
The architects have divided its implementation into 6 stages, and the construction of the second stage is already underway. The final implementation of the project is not yet close, and the university needs new areas now, so the buildings that were commissioned first are a miniature campus. This is the so-called "core" of 4 educational buildings and a library resembling a harbor crane outlines. They are surrounded by an oval ring road and are inscribed in a triangle between two rivers merging. A green zone is planned between the highways and their banks, where it is planned to keep the forest intact.
The layout of the campus, despite the presence of a "core" at the intersection of its two axes, is emphatically democratic - existing and future buildings are located freely, without hierarchy. In addition to academic buildings, there will be a research center and housing for students and teachers. The entire area is linked by a network of pedestrian paths and car traffic is limited. A special role is assigned to courtyards and other public spaces that can serve as “open-air auditoriums”.
The customers, the university administration and the employees of the Ministry of Education, educated in the communist spirit - Agostinho Neto, the first president of independent Angola, was a great friend of the Soviet Union - liked these completely socialist ideas of Perkins + Will. The architectural design of the buildings is associated with the same socialist period: it reminds of the modernist buildings of Luanda - raised above the ground on supports and protected by sun-cutters.
The main goal of the authors of the project is to create a “low-tech” with the help of high technologies and precise research, which does not require high costs for construction and operation. The buildings are constructed from modular elements and are dominated by concrete, painted steel structures, glass curtain walls with aluminum profiles. Air conditioners are installed only in the library, educational buildings rely on natural ventilation. Therefore, the architects made them narrow and long, and their longitudinal facades are located perpendicular to the prevailing direction of winds - from the Atlantic. To "drive" fresh air inside, buildings and courtyards are covered with zigzag roofs that create a pressure drop similar to an airplane wing. In addition, the courtyard that meets the wind is planted with "belts" of trees that cool, dedust and direct the air into the premises, and in the courtyard located on the opposite side, savanna vegetation is preserved: it is always warmed up by the sun and "draws" the air out of buildings.
The use of natural light in combination with shading was also determined by the decision of the building. For the latter, it was optimal to orient the buildings along the east-west axis, but this would interfere with capturing the wind, so the buildings are facing south and north with a deviation of 19 °. The south and north façades are covered with sun screens, as due to the proximity of the equator, both are heavily illuminated and heated by the sun. The walls are painted in muted tones, as bright colors fade faster in the sun.
While the campus is 1/6 ready, the library houses a dining room, a student union and other institutions necessary for the university, but in the future they will be transferred to other buildings, and this 5-storey building will retain its role as a high-rise dominant in the center of the campus. It is surrounded by a plaza and garden, which serve as an alternative reading room.
In 4 educational buildings, 2–3 floors high, there are four key departments of the university - mathematics, physics, chemistry and computer science. There, on the ground floor, there are seminar rooms, and above, there are teachers' offices. Also, in each building there is a streaming auditorium, administrative premises, educational laboratories and “auditorium-assemblies” - amphitheaters in the courtyards. The buildings located in a cross form, in addition to two courtyards responsible for ventilation, two more - a botanical and a nursery.
Angola, with its rich natural resources, authoritarian regime and impoverished population, cannot be considered an example to follow even in its region, but one cannot help but wonder: what made it possible for it to implement this exemplary project by any measure, if such plans are often stalled in more prosperous countries, one of which we know well.
