Community development centre in Paraguay

The OCA (Oficina Comunitaria de Arquitectura) and Bonini Arquitectos studios respond to a poverty-stricken area with a building that delivers spaces for community activities, including important things like classrooms and healthcare clinics, with the Centro de desarrollo comunitario (CDC) in Luque, Paraguay.



Architecture for the community driving social change: this is the “Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario” in Luque, in the metropolitan area of Asunción, capital of Paraguay, designed by OCA (Oficina Comunitaria de Arquitectura) and Bonini Arquitectos.





In what is a truly tough neighbourhood, often lacking even basic services, where people occupy land and everyone builds their own makeshift dwellings without urban planning, the participatory design and construction approach to a community centre for this informal settlement becomes particularly important. The CDC community centre by OCA and Bonini is a direct result of the plan called “Un techo para mi país” (a roof for my land) to create roofed spaces with a range of end uses, using self-building techniques and humble materials like hollow bricks and concrete.



The Centre is composed of a number of pavilions, built with the help of local residents in an unprecedented joint effort as part of a team. And it is this simple act - engaging and actively involving the locals - that gives a new identity to these lost locations, originally “non-places” because they lie outside any traditional urban planning rationale.  





A truly social-based project that highlights the power of participatory design. The “Centro de Desarrollo Comunitario” becomes a tool to leverage local development as well as a meeting place for the whole community. 



Federico Cairoli, photographer from Argentina, portrayed the CDC not only through his camera lens but also in a short documentary showing how the centre is used, mainly by children who seem to have carved out their own little world here, in spaces where they can play sports or just hang out in tranquillity and under the protective umbrella of the community.
On a very tight budget, OCA (Oficina Comunitaria de Arquitectura) and Bonini Arquitectos managed to design this building and bring out the beauty in simple things, with a social impact that appears destined to be taken on board elsewhere!

Christiane Bürklein

Oficina Comunitaria de Arquitectura y Bonini Arquitectos, ubicado en la Comunidad 12 de Junio, en Luque. 
Filmado y editado por Federico Cairoli.
Comunidad 12 de Junio, Luque. Paraguay 2015
© Federico Cairoli / Fotografía de Arquitectura
federicocairoli.com