Makoko Floating School

The Makoko floating school was a prototype for an alternative way of building for the coastal communities in Africa's rapidly urbanizing cities. It was constructed in the waterfront community of Makoko in Lagos, Nigeria. Makoko is an informal community, where houses are built on stilts above the lagoon. It functioned as a fishing village for hundreds of years prior to the region’s rapid urbanization, and most of the residents still fish for a living. 

Living conditions in the neighborhood are poor, and most residents lack reliable access to electricity and clean water. Construction is not always up to the city’s standards, and this led to part of the community being cleared out in 2012. Kunle Adeyemi, a Nigerian architect, wanted to take a different approach to addressing the issues faced by Makoko residents. He constructed a school, made to float in the lagoon waters and provide free education for 100 elementary school children.

The A-frame structure contains classrooms, a play area, and washrooms equipped with composting toilets. 250 recycled plastic barrels provide buoyancy, allowing the structure to float. Each day, the students came by boat to attend class. In the evening after the students returned home, the building was used as a community space for locals to gather, socialize, rest, or repair their fishing nets and tools together. 

Unfortunately, the school collapsed in 2016 after a particularly harsh rainy season damaged many buildings in Makoko. The building was empty at the time of the collapse, and the school is still functioning in a new location. There was some talk at the time of the collapse of developing a new, more robust prototype and rebuilding the floating school, but no reconstruction plan has been announced as of 2021.