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EL CULTIVO LA LEONA
COLEGIO EL CULTIVO LA LEONA
RE THINKING PUBLIC SCHOOLING IN RURAL COLOMBIA
CAJAMARCA, TOLIMA, COLOMBIA
SEPTEMBER 2023
COLLECTIVES:
Colectivo Socio Ambiental Juvenil de Cajamarca COSAJUCA @colectivocosajuca
PUBLIC SECTOR
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
GOBERNACION DE TOLIMA
DEVELOPER
Crepes & Waffles @crepes&waffles
PRIMARY ARCHITECTS
Simon Hosie
CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS
Pablo Lissa (Architect) , Paola Macia (Interior Design), Felipe Macia (Project Development)
Themes: Rural Education, Post-conflict public infrastructure
CONTEXT
The La Leona Educational Institution is a rural public school located in the village of La Leona, in the Anaime Canyon. The project emerged from the urgent need to relocate 320 students who had been attending classes in a building over 50 years old, which was declared at risk of landslides in 2012. Each rainy season, the Carrizales stream would erode parts of the land where the school stood, further endangering the community.
The existing infrastructure also lacked many of the essential spaces required for proper educational development. For years, the local community and municipal administration worked to secure the resources necessary for relocation, but without success.
La Leona’s case reflects a broader national issue: approximately 60% of public rural schools in Colombia are situated in areas at high risk of landslides or flooding, underscoring a critical vulnerability in the country's rural education system.
The project is a milestone in terms of avant garde public policy to finance rural school infrastructure, as Crepes and Waffles, developer and promoter, designed and built the school using the mechanism “Infrastructure for Taxes”. The mechanism allows private companies to pay taxes by building public infrastructure in regions that were affected by armed conflict in Colombia. The initiative forms part of a situated practice of the company in the region aimed at building fair-trade agreements with smallholders of the region for food sourcing since 2017, after Cajamarca organized a historical plebiscite that protected its fertile agricultural land from becoming a mega-mining district.
OBJECTIVE
La Leona is an architectural project that redefines design principles for public rural schools in Colombia through three fundamental strategies: fostering a relationship with the surrounding context, promoting interaction with others (both human and non-human), and revaluing local culture. To achieve this, the building integrates the landscape as its main pedagogical medium, drawing inspiration from the terraced agricultural practices of Indigenous Andean communities. Gently settled along the mountain slope, the school is organized into a sequence of three interconnected spaces at each level: a classroom for academic learning, an outdoor terrace for social interaction, and a cultivation terrace where regenerative agriculture becomes a medium for experiential education.
The new building has also sparked a comprehensive redesign of the school’s curriculum, positioning La Leona as a national model for innovation in both infrastructure and pedagogy within Colombia’s rural public school system. Currently, the school is undergoing a curriculum renewal focused on biodiversity, experiential learning, archaeology, and historical memory.
Nominate at MCHAMP 2024 and second plave in Colombias Architecture Bienalle