While any designs or early sketches of President Obama's library are still a ways off, architect Francis Kéré has provided an early view of another Obama family legacy project. Recently released renderings of the Mama Sarah Obama Foundation, an educational center in the village of Kogelo, Kenya, showcase early plans to construct a series of schools for Kenyan youth named after the step-grandmother of the U.S. president. The estimated $12 million project, a campus surrounded by open courtyards and gardens located in the birthplace of the President's father, would include a new early childhood education center and rehabilitate and expand the Senator Barack Obama primary and secondary schools.
The Mama Sarah Obama Foundation grew out of the work its namesake, a community leader who has spent decades caring for orphaned and impoverished youth. The proposed campus in Kogelo, a village of 3,600 the President wrote about in his memoir, would provide early childhood and educational service to roughly 1,000 students, fulfilling the foundation's goal of educating those left without options due to sub-Saharan Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Mama Sarah calls the campus, composed of three separate educational institutions, a "cycle of life." The different schools would be clustered around a set of shared facilities, including an auditorium, sports fields, and cafeteria. The renderings recall Kéré's previous work for the Gando School Library in Burkina Faso, another brick structure informed by African vernacular housing techniques and wide overhangs.
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· All Francis Kere coverage [Curbed]