METI's Handmade School / Anna Heringer + Eike Roswag - A Case Study by Ankit Shrestha

“Just imagine if you're a small boy or a girl standing after six months in front of a school and knowing that you built it with nothing but your hands and the dirt underneath your feet that gives an enormous boost in self-confidence. It's just really so empowering to the people.”

a presentation on METI’s

Handmade School, Bangladesh / Anna Heringer + Eike Roswag

Submitted to Ar. Buddha Shrestha

Acknowledgement I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to our teacher Ar. Buddha Shrestha sir, who gave me the opportunity to do research on the METI Handmade School. I came to know about so many new things and I am really thankful to him.

METI’s Handmade School | CONTENTS

1. Project Information 2. Introduction

3. Design 4. Construction 5. Construction technique

6. Impact of School

METI’s Handmade School

Project Information Location : Rudrapur, Bangladesh village of Rudrapur, about ten hours by road from Dhaka, compound of a Bangladeshi NGO, Dipshikha that is helping children in rural areas learn to read and write

Handmade School as a part of Modern Education & Training Institute (METI)

METI’s Handmade School

Project Information Year : 2005 Client : Dipshikha Non-Formal Education, Training & Research Society for Village Development Dipshikha (1978 A.D.) is a Bangladeshi rural development organization, engaged in socio-economic development activities among the poorest of the poor.

Participation in real sense of the grass root people in development effort is one of the key issues for Dipshikha.

Paul, Dipshikha Executive Director with Anna & Eike

METI’s Handmade School

Project Information Architect : Anna Heringer Anna Heringer (born 13 October 1977 in Rosenheim) is a German architect. She graduated her Architectural master degree from University for Arts and industrial design in Linz, Austria. She is also an honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development. She has received numerous honors: the Obel Award 2020, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, the AR Emerging Architecture Awards in 2006 and 2008, the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard's GSD and a RIBA International Fellowship.

METI’s Handmade School

Project Information Architect : Anna Heringer Her diploma work, the METI School in Rudrapur got realized in 2005 in collaboration with Eike Roswag and won the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2007. Over the years, Anna has realized further projects in Asia, Africa, and Europe. Together with Martin Rauch she has developed the method of Clay Storming that she teaches at various universities, including ETH Zurich, UP Madrid, TU Munich and GSD/Harvard.

Anna Heringer with her team posing with Aga Khan Award Infront of School

METI’s Handmade School

Project Information Construction : Eike Roswag Eike Roswag-Klinge is Professor for Constructive Design & Climate Adaptive Architecture at Natural Building Lab. For more than 20 years, Eike has been researching on climate and resource adaptive, human architecture in different climatic zones, which forms the basis for his teaching, design and construction projects. His projects demonstrate a great variety and range from schools out of earth and bamboo. His research is focused on climate and cultural adaptive architecture with a specific emphasis on low-tech building systems. The projects he has worked on were awarded with the Aga Khan Award 2007, KAIROS Europäischer Kulturpreis 2015, Holcim Award 2011, Gold in Asia Pacific and others.

METI’s Handmade School

Introduction Earth & Bamboo Building Heringer takes her inspiration from the vernacular architecture of Rudrapur village. Much of the vernacular built tradition uses earth and bamboo as a building material, however, construction techniques are error-prone and many buildings lack foundations and damp proof coursing. Such buildings require regular maintenance, are often prone to damage and last on average only 10 years.

METI’s Handmade School

Introduction Earth & Bamboo Building Heringer takes her inspiration from the vernacular architecture of local surrounding. Much of the vernacular built tradition uses earth and bamboo as a building material, however, construction techniques are error-prone and many buildings lack foundations and damp proof coursing. Such buildings require regular maintenance, are often prone to damage and last on average only 10 years.

METI’s Handmade School

Introduction Earth & Bamboo Building Materials : Heringer uses COB – Clay, Earth, Sand, Straw mixed with water that is shaped by hand or trowel

METI’s Handmade School

Introduction Earth & Bamboo Building Materials : Something that is right underneath and a plant that was growing all around Heringer uses COB – Clay, Earth, Sand, Straw mixed with water that is shaped by hand or trowel Bamboo for upper level Corrugated Sheets for roof Brick & cement for foudation.

METI’s Handmade School

Design Two floor building, with the lower floor being made of load bearing COB walls and upper floor of light weight bamboo

Bamboo

Earth

METI’s Handmade School

Design Rhythmically spaced vertical bamboo trusses (at onemetre centres) are juxtaposed with horizontal bamboo slats to create a powerful imagery. The intricate decorative effect of the trusses is accentuated by the play of sunlight. The horizontal slatted window frames are camouflaged as part of the wall.

3 closed Classrooms with a cave

2 open classrooms

METI’s Handmade School

Design

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Builders : The locals, Students & 2 cows Aside from two craftsmen from Germany and several students from Linz, all the work was done by unskilled laborers from Rudrapur, with the idea that they would gain useful experience in cob construction.

METI’s Handmade School

Construction COB Production Buffalos were used to mix the COB on site.

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Foundation Brick foundation and introduction of double layer of plastic i.e. P-E Film that serves as ground and earthen walls, a damp proofing layers Damp proofing was an improvement on the vernacular architecture to reduce effects of moisture on earth walls

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Foundation

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Walls COB walls are built in layers. straw-earth mixture is heaped on top of the foundation wall to a height of 65 cm per layer. Excess material extending beyond the width of the wall is trimmed off using sharp spades after a few days, the texture produced by trimming of spades was left raw. After a drying period of about a week the next layer of cob can be applied. In the third and fourth layers the door and window lintels and jambs were integrated as well as a ring beam made of thick bamboo canes as a wall plate for the ceiling.

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Walls

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Walls

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Walls

METI’s Handmade School

Construction Technique Ceiling The ceiling of the ground floor is a triple layer of bamboo canes with the central layer arranged perpendicular to the layers above and beneath to provide lateral stabilisation and a connection between the supporting beams. On top of it earth mixture is added to built surface of upper floor.

METI’s Handmade School