Faced with growing classes and limited resources, the administration of El Ávila, a preschool to secondary school in Caracas, decided to accommodate a much needed space for creative purposes in the facility’s dining hall. The architects’ decision to re-use the building’s crumbling infrastructure to create brand new spaces not only made financial and environmental sense, it is also a source of inspiration for students and society at large, fostering creativity by demonstrating how beauty is a product of imagination rather than resources.

As Kowalenko explains, “we wanted to rescue local materials that have been traditionally labelled as ugly or ordinary due to poor implementation”. Traditional slabs of white granite and humble terracotta tiles have been used to create bold curves on the floor; non-descript concrete blocks are animated by metallic door-frames and benches in bright yellow, while old blackboards find new life away from the classrooms as doors. Grounded on a playful aesthetic of graphical boldness, the school’s resourceful renovation not only draws attention to the importance of education but also functions as a design paradigm in a country experiencing severe shortages.