Yennenga Center

Yennenga Progress, based both in Burkina Faso and Sweden, aims to fight poverty and build a sustainable society, using UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as a road map. Viterstedt Arkitektur has a longstanding collaboration with Yennenga Progress, providing pro bono architectural services to support its mission.

Located in Nakamtenga, a small village northeast of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, the Yennenga Center complex consists of an administration and conference building, a restaurant and a boarding school and guesthouse. Furthermore, a sports facility for floorball and basketball, a park with a playground for smaller children, as well as a pétanque court and minigolf.

The cluster of buildings is laid out on site in order from the most public to the most private spaces. The conference space and the restaurant with its large shading roof provide spaces for communal gatherings, and refuge from the hot rays of the sun. Heavy rains and winds are as well common during parts of the year. The boarding school, situated in the far end of the complex, houses 32 students as well as 7-10 guests with a shared courtyard and common spaces on ground floor.

The main building material is a locally sourced laterite stone. It is extracted from earth, cut and shaped to size and hardened in the sun before stacked like a brick wall.

Animal sculptures: Animal Factory by Luca Boscardin
Steel structures in collaboration with Stadsverkstad

Location: Nakamtenga, Burkina Faso
Client: Yennenga Progress, Pro Bono
Size: 8 400 sq m