In June 2022 Eleonora, Giulia and Matteo embarked on a journey to South Sudan with the aim of meeting the community that lives in and around the Diocese of Rumbek. With the help of the Comboni missionaries, which have been present in the area for several decades, earlier under the guidance of ph. Cesare Mazzolari and today, after a years-long conflict, with the young bishop ph. Christian Carlassare, the team of designers has been able to map the boundaries of the Diocese within the town of Rumbek and at the same time to collect the requests of the community in relation to the urban and structural development of their compound, in order to help them for the new construction and the integration of new services for the local community. Following this first visit, the studio developed a preliminary project for the construction of a residential building made to host missionaries and other operators, even for short periods. The building should be a low-cost construction, with the use of raw materials and local workforce, simple in its realization, but which could effort the environmental, social and construction problems of the site. In particular, from the observation of the many examples of recent constructions built on the area and from their objective evaluation in terms of functionality and durability over time, the studio made an attempt to identify the most effective and useful technologies, materials, spatial solutions and construction processes - in addition to the functional needs of the building - of a context so different from the one in which operates every day in Italy.

The design themes can be summarized as follows: sustainable (both economically and socially) of materials and construction techniques, protection from solar radiation, natural ventilation and cooling without energy consumption, protection during the rainy season also through the rainwater recovery and re-use, accessibility, protection from animals and insects (particularly from the malaria mosquito). All these assumptions have been considered and developed in the design process, in order to find a place in the final design solution:

Double facing rooms with smaller openings to the South and larger to the North to increase natural ventilation (cross ventilation);

The shed windows facing north, in addition to increase the ventilation, allow indirect light to enter avoiding the serra-effect (overheating) of the windows themselves;
All the windows (excluding those facing north) are protected by sunshaders and mosquito nets;
Economy of spaces: where unnecessary some functions will be delegated to external spaces such as distribution (front porches) , cooking (external canopy), laundry and other auxiliary functions;
Thermo-acoustic insulation of the roof by using insulated sheet metal and ventilation roof layer;
Use of local materials: mahogany wood is used for the roof structure, for the window frames and the sunshaders; the masonry is made by raw earth bricks in order to maximize the use of local resources and work skills;
Phytodepuration system (with plants) for the wasted water and its reuse for irrigation together with the rainwater recovery;