EMPEPI SCHOOL
Let us begin with schools. If anything is to be done to “reform” people, the first step is to “form” them.
Lina Bo Bardi, Primeiro: escolas. Habitat, no. 4, 1951
The Aglomerado da Serra lies in the southern zone of Belo Horizonte and brings together 8 neighborhoods with more than 46,000 residents. The largest favela in Minas Gerais and one of the three largest in Brazil, the “Serrão” climbs the steep slopes of the Serra do Curral, an area rich in springs, streams, and native forest. It faces high environmental vulnerability, linked to flooding, landslides, heatwaves, and contamination of the groundwater.
In the southeastern part of the settlement, in a valley of Vila Nossa Senhora de Fátima, stands EMPEPI Municipal School. The building follows a standardized model: two parallel four-story blocks connected by a stair tower. The absence of elevators prevents free access for people with reduced mobility. The structure occupies the widest section of a narrow, sloping lot, wedged between two streets, Rua Nossa Senhora de Fátima, higher up, and Avenida do Cardoso, below. The design fails to account for local bioclimatic conditions. Classrooms are thermally uncomfortable, exposed to both morning and afternoon sun. Wind channeled through the valley drives rain against the west façade, forcing windows to remain shut during storms and compromising natural ventilation. Sunshades were later installed to reduce direct sunlight, but without protection from rain or cross ventilation, heat and discomfort persist.
The school includes 11 classrooms, a library, cafeteria, administrative and faculty offices, support rooms, and two courtyards, all insufficient in size and number to meet demand. For years, expansion was deemed impossible due to the perception that the site’s free area could not accommodate new construction. To compensate for the lack of space, the school began renting an improvised, distant property for full-time education activities, forcing young children to walk between the two buildings along the street.
In 2023, the situation began to change. EMPEPI was named Best School in the World in the Social Collaboration category with the project “More Favela, Less Waste,” awarded by the Global T4 Education platform. The project, developed by UFMG’s School of Architecture in partnership with EMPEPI and the community, fostered debates and educational initiatives to combat illegal waste disposal in the favela, strengthening community leadership, environmental awareness, and collective stewardship of the territory.
This recognition reignited negotiations between the school, the Department of Education, and municipal agencies to make use of the underutilized portion of the lot, turning the expansion into a city priority. With the prize money, EMPEPI hired Horizontes Arquitetura e Urbanismo to develop the architectural and engineering projects for the extension.
To ensure terrain stability, a thorough geotechnical study identified secure points for the foundations, respecting the anchors of the existing retaining wall in the subsoil and taking advantage of the site’s topography to optimize rainwater drainage, reducing landslide risks.
The narrow plot and the curved geometry defined by the foundation layout determined the placement of the columns and shaped the main building in the form of a “fan.” Circulation areas and technical support spaces occupy the inner portion of the fan, facing east, while the new classrooms line the outer edge, exposed to the less favorable west. The four-story main block will have its principal entrance on a covered terrace at the level of a new public square along Rua Nossa Senhora de Fátima. Outside school hours, the terrace will remain open to the community, hosting cultural and leisure activities. At the lowest level, a pilotis with an amphitheater, adapted to the site’s slope, will connect to the gardens. The two intermediate floors will house eight full-time education rooms (for computer science, dance, martial arts, arts, and multipurpose use), along with technical support areas. An intermediate hall, furnished with fixed benches and framed by the support spaces, serves as a transition zone between the more public circulation areas and the more private classrooms, encouraging social interaction and community life.
A second structure, known as the central connecting block, will have five stories and a basement. It will link the existing building to the new one, incorporating the current stair tower and connecting all levels with ramps, walkways, staircases, elevators, and restrooms, ensuring full accessibility for people with reduced mobility.
The design addresses both climatic challenges and budget constraints through passive, efficient strategies that reduce energy consumption. Though the main classroom windows are on the west façade, where solar radiation is most intense, they are installed in staggered, curved walls oriented toward the northeast, lessening direct exposure. Slabs extend beyond the window line, acting as deep overhangs that provide shade while allowing windows to remain open for natural ventilation, even on rainy days. The façade recesses generate pressure differentials that draw airflow into the rooms. With circulation on the east side and classrooms on the west, the building benefits from cross ventilation, reinforced by high-level windows between classrooms and corridors.
Generous landscaping throughout the site helps create a milder microclimate, improving thermal comfort through evaporative cooling while reinforcing environmental education and the importance of urban reforestation, by deepening children’s daily contact with nature.
The structural system is conventional, with exposed concrete columns, beams, and slabs. Exposed ceramic brick predominates on the façades and circulation areas of the main block. The terrace roof will be clad in blue, evoking the sky, while the existing building, the lower covered pilotis, and the connecting block will be painted in various shades of green, creating a visual transition between old and new. The restrained palette of materials underscores austerity, paired with the boldness and creativity of the design.
The project highlights the urgency of confronting climate change impacts, especially in vulnerable territories such as informal settlements and favelas. In these contexts, a school is more than a place of learning, it is also a space of care, health, nourishment, and refuge, within a daily reality marked by instability, precarious housing, and constant environmental risks from rain, heat, and landslides.
Drawing inspiration from international experiences with cultural facilities in vulnerable areas, such as Medellín’s Parque Libraries, the project embraces architecture as a driver of social, cultural, and environmental transformation, capable of fostering pride, belonging, and resilience in the community, preparing the territory to withstand and reinvent itself in the face of environmental disasters. Recognizing that physical space directly influences learning, the project invests in aesthetically engaging and functional environments that go beyond classrooms, creating places with identity and meaning that nurture interaction, engagement, and collective renewal.
The Best School in the World deserves a project worthy of its title, bold and ambitious, proving that a public facility in a favela can and must meet the same architectural standards as any private building. Completion is expected in 2025, with construction beginning in 2026, financed by the city.