Emergencies strike suddenly and without warning. They level cities to the ground and tear down buildings as though they were made of sand. In almost no time at all everything is destroyed and all that remains is the realisation that you have to get up and start all over again from scratch. In recent years the occurrence of deluges and flooding have increased dramatically. Analogously, conflicts and financial crises persist and lead to serious humanitarian emergencies which put the lives of millions of people at risk. Resolving an emergency of any kind means re-establishing peace and security.
The ”Emergency Operations Centre” is the 4th of the Kaira Looro international architecture competition. This is a Non Profit competition with the aim of raising awareness among the international community about emergencies in developing countries, and support humanitarian
projects in Africa.
The past editions were dedicated to the design of a Sacred Architecture (2017), a Cultural Centre (2018) and a Peace Pavilion (2019). This year the competition aims to develop a theme of global interest: emergency, such as Tsunami, Wars, Flooding etcetera. The theme of the 2020’s competition was to design an Operational Centre for the management of humanitarian emergencies in Sub-Saharan Africa, an EOC. The architecture is intended to house and facilitate the mainly activities which international organisations and local authorities must implement in order to solve emergencies and provide aid to affected communities. The spaces should be versatile
and multifunctional, capable of adapting to specific needs and to the type and context of the emergency.
The competition has been organized by the Balouo Salo No Profit Organization, engaged in Africa to develops humanitarian projects, with the collaboration of structures of international importance and relevant collaborations such us Kengo Kuma & Associates, SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli, MMA Design Studio, international NGOs, medias and institutions.

The winners were chosen by an international jury made up of: Kengo Kuma (Kengo Kuma & Associates, Japan), Agostino Ghirardelli (SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli, Italy), Lígia Nunes (Architecture Sans Frontières International, Spain), Mphethi Morojele (MMA Design Studio, South Africa), Walter Baricchi (CNAPPC), Philippa Nyakato Tumubweinee (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Mantey Jectey-Nyarko (Kwame Nkrumah University, Ghana), and a scientific committee made up of Raoul Vecchio (Balouo Salo), Sebastiano D’Urso (University of Catania) and Moussa Soaune (Senegalese institution).