Statement:
After many years of civil war and economic instability, communities in rural Sierra Leone are struggling to overcome poverty and improve their health and education systems. Only 35% of their population is literate and most villages don’t have permanent school structures because the current school construction methods adopted in other parts of the country are costly and do not provide suitable learning conditions. This project aims to develop several low-cost, sustainable prototypes for elementary schools. To confirm the effectiveness of the study and its feasibility in real life, I will work with the organization Village Hope and 6 communities in the zone of Lunsar in northern Sierra Leone. The people from these villages will be interviewed to learn what their goals and expectations in education and the new schools are. Different educational models and the spaces ideal for their implementation will be studied in depth as well. The designs aim to reduce costs by more than 60% through the use of abundant local resources such as earth and timber. Earth in particular, will be studied as a sustainable construction material and its many design opportunities will be explored. The school design will use daylighting solutions to reach the ideal luminosity for reading and writing, new spaces will be developed to make room for modern and non-conventional teaching practices, natural ventilation and heat gain will be taken into consideration to increase thermal comfort, and the building will effectively withstand heavy rain during the wet season.
I believe that good design does not have to be expensive, that it can be ‘hand-made’ and still have excellent architectural qualities and spaces. This project will help prove that low-cost does not mean unsightly, inefficient, or uncomfortable. Furthermore, the prototypes could potentially revolutionize the way schools are constructed in the country and the surrounding region.
Program
4500 people > 33 villages > 6 communities > 6 schools
1 school
> classrooms for 300 students
> open public gathering space
> office
> storage and equipment room
> bathrooms/ latrines
> headmaster’s residence
Schedule
December > study earth construction
January > site analysis and interviews in Sierra Leone
build test of earth construction methods
February, March > research, analyze test results
March - May > design prototypes
October - ? > build schools
research
projects
-Casa en Arruda dos Vinhos
-Red Hill Residence
-Tebogo Home for Handicapped Children
readings
-Earth Construction Handbook. Gernot Minke, 2000
-Earth Architecture. Ronald Rael, 2008
-Apuntes: Arquitectura en Tierra.. Vol. 20 No. 2, 2007
-BBC Photojournal: Getting an Education in Sierra Leone
-Africa's future, Africa's challenge : early childhood care and development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Garcia, Pence, & Judith, 2008
People
student- Joanna Rodriguez-Noyola
advisor- Jan Wampler
readers-
John Ochsendorf
Les Norford
Jonathan Bart (Village Hope president)
