FIRST AID CENTER FOTOMENA, CAMERUN

In the recent history of world architecture we were no more used to think about a project in the terms of awareness about the scarcity of resources in general and/or the limited economic resources, propounding works less and less related at the background or at the real needs of the community, often withdrawn in the author’s stylistic narcissism and his formal perfection. Nowadays, that the crisis of global economies has aroused the financial default of the systems of high-level industrial development, it is possible to look around with a major sense of criticism and individuate with precision the exhaustion of expensive architecture ideas, needing some substantial capital to get realized and confined in an ideological self-sufficiency compared to the real world needs and functions. Even the materials, with which these works were made of, were subject to market principles (brand) that gave privilege to luxury products, while determining a devaluation of traditional building materials considered too poor to emphasize the new design approach. One of the few positive aspects that this current crisis has brought to light is the need to search for alternatives to this modus operandi, restarting exactly from these basic elements (traditional-local materials), and by focusing on the collective aspect rather than an exercise of style. The practice of sustainability goes far beyond the adoption of sophisticated technology more appropriate for the high income and consumption countries. Furthermore, the environmental responsibility, and therefore the relation to the climate, geography, social uses, it requires more the concept to know-how, when adopting all those constructive and typological attentions that recall a traditional project of built and natural resources, like the sun, the wind, the climate: small scale, big change. In the analysis process, Cameroon has been compared with other countries; and this comparison makes possible to define primarily some critical issues related to social and health sector. This comparison, realized by the means of a series of graphs (showing the 2013 statistics, source World Bank), it enables an evaluation of each country reality in economic, education, health, services, social development and infrastructure sectors. In addition, the research work includes the territorial screening of Cameroon that gives us, as final result, the architectural design of the first aid center of Fotomena. The building, considers both: environmental and social aspects in the area of intervention.