French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, located at the northern end of the Mozambique Canal, the territory of Mayotte consists of two islands, Grande-Terre and Petite-Terre. Although the region is by far the poorest in France, within the Comoros archipelago – to which it geographically belongs – it enjoys a relative prosperity that makes it subject to constant illegal migration flows. According to the French National Institute of Statistics, almost half of the population of Mayotte does not have French nationality, 77% of its inhabitants live below the poverty line, half of the population is under 18, four out of ten families live in housing made of sheet metal or vegetable materials and three out of ten do not have running water. Violence is a widespread and endemic problem, while traffic problems are constant.

With over a thousand species of plants observed over an area of 374 km² and its rich density of island fauna, Mayotte is part, with Madagascar and other islands of the Indian Ocean, of one of the 36 areas in the world identified as "biodiversity hotspots". Irregular rainfall, rising sea levels and the associated risk of flooding, extensive deforestation for subsistence farming, and coral bleaching are all phenomena which, since some years, are seriously undermining its delicate terrestrial and marine ecosystem, which, due to climate change, are rapidly exacerbating.

Starting from these premises, WISH had the objective of investigating the relationship between new possible housing models, the effects of climate change and the local economy, exploring, through the project, the subtle balances between man and the environment. The work focused on the region of Chirongui, in the south-western part of the island of Grande-Terre, which includes a large coastal urban area, consisting of numerous villages, overlooking the bay of Bouéni. Chirongui is destined to become in the next years the second most important center of the island, in order to counterbalance the presence of Mamoudzou in the north-west, administrative capital. Thanks to the active support of the municipality of Chirongui, WISH has been able to know live and put at the center of its reflections eight project areas in the region – one for each participating student – characterized by urgent problems and therefore waiting for immediate answers. These areas, thanks to the variety of issues raised, have allowed the workshop to anchor itself to a precise local and contextual dimension, while fueling the discussion around issues common to the entire urban context of the island: the relationship of the inhabited area with the delicate coastal ecosystem; the need to provide concrete responses to the threats posed by water, increasingly accentuated by climate change; the fragility of the built environment and the need to safeguard its equally fragile identity; the role of spontaneous processes that have led to the rapid formation of the so-called "shantytowns", interpreted from the point of view of settlement and space; how to deal with the expansion, driven by the exceptional population growth, in relation to land consumption and the preservation of the island’s outstanding natural qualities.