The association
History, missions, vision
A vision for a sustainable future
The Association la Voûte Nubienne (AVN) was founded in 2000 by a French mason, Thomas Granier, and a Burkinabe farmer, Séri Youlou. Together, they initiated a revolutionary project to meet the housing needs of rural Africa, based on the ancestral technique of the Nubian Vault (NV).
context
Housing is a priority social need, yet for a large part of the Sahelian population, housing is often precarious or even inaccessible. Poverty, demographic growth and the disappearance of wood resources used in traditional architecture are depriving millions of families of access to decent housing. To access housing, these families have no choice but to dip into their meagre health, food and education budgets to buy sheet metal roofs, which are imported , very expensive, fragile, and largely unsuitable.
Our solution
At the heart of the program is an architectural concept that is both ancestral and innovative: the Nubian Vault. This construction technique, which does not require cement, timber or sheet metal, uses mud / adobe bricks, and enables local and often precarious workers to be professionally trained in a trade of the future. The result? Access for as many people as possible to buildings that are affordable, adapted, comfortable and resistant to the consequences of climate change, the creation of green jobs, the strengthening of economies at all levels and the development of an "adapted housing" sector in a green economy.
Our vision
"Adapted housing, for as many people as possible, as quickly as possible".