Checkout This School In Lagos Built In The Middle Of A Lagoon (Pictures) – SHARE THIS

 Checkout This School In Lagos Built In The Middle Of A Lagoon (Pictures) – SHARE THIS

Makoko Floating School, beacon of hope for the Lagos ‘waterworld’ – a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 48
When Jessica Collins and photographer Iwan Baan visited Lagos in 2013 to document a radical new school, the Makoko slum was facing demolition. Now the building’s global recognition is helping to give the community fresh hope
Driving into Lagos along the Third Mainland Bridge, the city greets us with a sky as thick as coal-slurry and a soundtrack as soulful as Fela Kuti. Pedestrians slowly criss-cross the eight lanes as we drive, while could-be Area Boys transform the beds of pickup trucks into mobile azonto dance-floors.

Halfway across we turn and spot the Makoko Floating School rising like a beacon out of the murky Lagos Lagoon. It is December 2013, and this is our first glimpse of the inspiring triangular timber structure – only three storeys high, yet commanding the attention of all who travel across the longest bridge in Africa.
We are travelling to meet Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeymi, founder and principal of the NLÉ practice who, in collaboration with the Makoko Waterfront Community, conceived, designed and built the floating school. Makoko, Nigeria’s oldest slum, is home to a population of roughly 80,000 residents who, over the centuries, have banded together to create an informal but fully working city-on-stilts at the edge of the lagoon.
With most of the population working in the fish-smoking or fishing industry, a whiff of Makoko smells of just that. The air is thick with fumes; smog seeps out from the hundreds of wood-burning kilns and smokehouses scattered across this community.
As it grew, the lagoon gradually became divided into a series of informal canals, through which taxi-canoes are manoeuvred by nimble young bodies. From the stilted architecture to the re-appropriation of found objects (such as the emptied parboiled-rice bags that double as roof shelters) to canoes equipped with stereo-systems serving as mobile music-boxes, the inhabitants of Makoko have adapted their lives completely to surviving on water.
Three years ago, however, the Lagos authorities announced that in just 72 hours, a process of forcible eviction was to begin here. Some 3,000 residents have since been displaced from Makoko – regarded as a potentially lucrative waterfront site – leaving behind a resilient yet sceptical community.
Around the time the evictions began, Kunlé Adeymi began asking questions about the adaptability and sustainability of Makoko, and other such African coastal communities. The answers he got led to an immediate architectural response: his Makoko Floating School, completed in March 2013, would primarily serve as a school and community centre, while also being scalable and adaptable for other purposes.
Dressed in a crisp linen shirt and breezy summer trousers, Kunlé meets us at the main water-taxi dock. Like the school he designed, he offers a bright contrast against the charcoal waterscape of Makoko. We sail through the labyrinth of canals as Kunlé explains the ins and outs of this unique waterworld.
It’s a Sunday morning in a country where 50% of the population is Christian, and for once this part of the city has a near sci-fi silence to it – save for the dip of a paddle into the water, and the sound of young children yelling “Yavo! Yavo!” (francophone slang for “foreigner”). We pass a beauty salon, photo-booth, grocery stores, a myriad of churches, DVD and barber shops before finally arriving at a clearing where the floating school stands tall in the water.