At first sight the school buildings that have sprung up in Thionck Essyl in Senegal resemble a lost work by Antoni Gaudí.

The strikingly-designed school, where classes began in October, is the work of a group of volunteers led by the Barcelona architect David Garcia and his colleague Lluís Morón, who established a foundation to crowdfund the project.

It began when Aina Tugores, a young woman working at Garcia’s practice, returned from two months in Thionck Essyl, a town with a population of about 8,000 in south-west Senegal.

Tugores’ enthusiasm for the place and its people was contagious, Garcia says, and she persuaded him to visit the region.

“People aren’t dying of hunger there, but they are poor in many other ways, in terms of education and culture, and there’s little way out except emigration,” he says.

Above all, the local school lacked space to cope with demand. Some 70 students were crammed into classes, while many weren’t attending school at all. The foundation reached an agreement with the local authority that it would fund the new school, which would be built by local labour with locally-sourced material, and the local authority would manage it.

Children outside the school building in Thionck Essyl. A second communal building will host two more classrooms, a library and a teachers’ room. Photograph: Rubén P. Bescós

“A group of us signed up to the project on a voluntary basis,” Garcia says. The project “provided great practical experience for architecture students.”

They launched a crowdfunding campaign, organised events and published books. The money raised was spent on labour, materials and administration of the project.

“A lot of people, once they saw that the money was going directly to the project and to the people who would benefit from it, and not to some middleman, were keen to participate,” says Morón.

The buildings take the form of a catenary arch, constructed with bricks over a wooden mould. This type of arch was favoured by Gaudí as it allows for the building of tall and slender structures, best seen in the chapel he designed for the Colégio Teresiano in Barcelona.

“We never set out to emulate any architect, nor colonise with our tradition,” says Garcia, who was in charge of the recent restoration of one of Gaudí’s first houses, the Casa Vicens. But the characteristics of bricks made from local clay led him to conclude that the only structure that could work with this material was a catenary arch.

“Our aim was to make something sustainable from local materials and, given their limitations, this was the logical way to do it,” he says, adding that some aspects of both the inverted catenary arch typical of Gaudí and the structure known as the bóveda catalana (Catalan vault) are similar to features of the local architecture in Senegal.

The school also has another feature associated with Gaudí: tiling made of broken ceramics – a technique known as trencadís, which has been used to make the school’s floors.

The project addressed climate conditions through a sustainable building system. Photograph: Rubén P. Bescós

“Trencadís already exists there and in many other places,” Garcia says. “It stems from the need to make use of existing material. We started with recycling broken ceramics and then bought some in that we had broken ourselves.”

The project has cost €400,000 (£342,000) and has taken four years so far, with the football pitch still awaiting completion. Not all of the classrooms are open and the school still needs more teachers if it is to avoid overcrowded classes.

The foundation has signed a two-year agreement under which it will cover some costs, such as electricity and maintenance, with a view to the school taking full responsibility in due course.

Although the foundation was set up by half a dozen friends specifically to bring the Senegal project to fruition, it is now thinking of establishing projects elsewhere.

It has already set up a carpentry workshop in Thionck Essyl and coordinates the work of volunteers who go out to give classes that range from healthcare, nutrition, plumbing and welding to illustration and sex education.

“A lot has changed,” says Garcia. “We went and showed them how to create this structure and now one of the builders there, who knew nothing about this technique to begin with, has shown me a better way to build it.”