ASP - The book

AFRICAN SCHOOL PROJECT

EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION

a competition by Archstorming -1-

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Š Archstorming S.L. 2019 Photographies: Marina Rosillo, Roser Juny Special thanks to: Teresa Garolera, Fernando Aguirre, James Barasa, Steven Ochieng, Peggy Grueninger, Kenneth Kim, Teresa Valenzuela.

Thanks to all the participants: 1.166 people in 500 teams, from 71 different countries.

introduction 7 Malawi: cultural and social context 9 the location: Benga 11 earth and climate 13 materials and building techniques 14 the challenge 16 the program 19 interview with Fernando Aguirre 20 winners and honorable mentions 23 selected proposals 55

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introduction Universal education, gender equality and empowering women are vital components of the mission in developing countries. Educating children helps reduce poverty and will give the next generation the tools to fight poverty and conquer disease. School also offers children a safe environment, with support, supervision and socialization. Here they learn life skills that can help them prevent diseases, including how to avoid HIV/AIDS and malaria. Children may receive lifesaving vaccines, fresh water and nutrient supplementation at school.

Many countries have committed themselves to more than the achievement of universal primary education. They are also looking at expanding universal education so that it includes several years of secondary school and a new basic education. The challenge of keeping children in school after primary school is great.

UNESCO reports that when lower secondary-school-age children are counted in, the number of out-of-school children is doubled, as more than 72 million adolescents in this group are out of school.

The barriers to school attendance at secondary level resemble those at primary level, but those barriers are intensified.

The cost of secondary schooling is often higher than the cost of primary schooling and therefore more difficult for families to afford; secondary schools are further from home, often requiring transportation; and the conflict between educational aspirations and the potential income that could be earned by a working adolescent becomes greater.

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Malawi: cultural and social context Malawi is a country with a population of 16 million people, where more than a million are orphans. It is one of the most densely populated countries in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of the least developed and poorest countries in the world.

After years under British rule, Malawi has enjoyed stability since its independence in 1964, although always under a dictatorial and corrupt government. Today, Malawi is a democratic and multi-party country. It is known as “The Warm Heart of Africa� for the generosity and hospitality of its people, who always have a smile for their visitors despite the adversities with which they live. Their culture is rich and vibrant, with a great passion for their songs and dances.

Poverty, AIDS, lack of education and their heavy dependence on agriculture are the main problems. Malawians have a life

expectancy slightly above 50 years, and more than half live below the poverty line.

Its economy is based on agriculture, with practically 90% of the population living in rural areas.

The objective of this project is to bet on secondary education, thus ensuring the complete education cycle.

Education is a human right and is central to achieving many other sustainable development outcomes.

A quality basic education gives children and youth the knowledge and skills they need to face daily life challenges, and take advantage of economic and lifelong learning opportunities. It is also a key driver for reducing poverty, fostering economic growth, achieving gender equality, and social development.

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the location: Benga Benga is located in the Nkhotakota District, situated 10 km east of Lake Malawi and 30 km west of the Ntchisi Forest Reserve. It is 60 km south of Nkhotakota Township and 50 km north of Salima Township. Benga is located halfway of these towns, in a tar road.

The school will be located next to Benga Parish, a Missionary Community of Saint Paul the Apostle. They already have a primary school and are planning to build the secondary school in the other side of the road.

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earth and climate Malawi has a sub-tropical climate, which is relatively dry and strongly seasonal.

The warm-wet season stretches from November to April, during which 95% of the annual precipitation takes place.

The climate of Malawi varies widely because of the terrain. Near the lake, the mean annual temperature is 24ºC. November is the hottest month where temperatures are ranging from 17 to 29ºC. The coldest month, July, has a temperature range of 7 to 23ºC. The natural vegetation pattern reflects the country’s diversity in relief, soils, and climate. The predominant vegetation of Malawi is the savannah woodland.

Evergreen forests are found in places where ground water is plentiful, such as the river valleys and mountains.

Lake Malawi, the twelfth largest fresh

water lake in the world, borders the lowlands and marks the boundary east side of the nation.

However, Malawi’s natural vegetation has been altered significantly by human activities. Swamp vegetation has given way to agricultural species as swamps have been drained and cultivated. Much of the original woodland has been cleared, and, at the same time, forests of softwoods have been planted in the highland areas. High population density and intensive cultivation of the Shire Highlands have also hindered natural succession there.

The Ministry of Mines, Natural Resources, and Environmental Affairs is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the protection of Malawi’s environment, since deforestation is becoming one of the main problems in the country.

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materials and building techniques In this competition the winning project is going to be built, the chosen proposal will be used as the basis of the final project.

That is why materials and building techniques will be crucial.

It is mandatory to use the materials and building techniques specified below, otherwise your proposal can be disqualified.

a metallic structure can be built, keep in mind that it is also more expensive than using wood or bricks.

The main materials of the area currently used for construction are clay, stones, wood and iron. Clay and stones are used to make bricks, having two different brick typologies: clay bricks and concrete bricks. The first ones are more economical than the second ones.

The two other structures used as the most common structural systems are metallic structure or wood structure. Remember that both materials have to be treated in the right way to prevent future problems (termites, iron corrosion etc.). Although

The water provision must be covered by water tanks, so participants will also need to keep an area to ubicate them.

For the roof, they mainly use dried grass ceilings or iron sheets. Remember that, since they still don’t have electrical network, solar panels will have to be considered in your proposals.

Participants can also consider the option of improving the constructive systems and bring new ideas, but always thinking that the resources and financial capacity of the project are limited. If a participant team decides to include a new material to the construction, make sure it is affordable and achievable for an NGO working in a third world country.

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the challenge Giving the fact that education is something to be improved in many underdeveloped countries, the project for the secondary school aims to be adaptive in many different areas and also needs to be thought in global terms, giving a solution to a problem that directly affects the educational system in the third world.

In the proposals, participants have to adapt on using local materials, easy constructive systems and energetic technologies as it has been explained before, in order to make proposals as realistic and efficient as possible.

Through your projects, the main goal is to:

EDUCATE: allowing children to access school and make them understand what improvements could they reach if they work hard on learning not only history, maths or languages but also in everyday activities such as agriculture or livestock.

Another fact is that many of these children live without access to proper healthcare, and teaching them how they can protect their own health is crucial. Many common health issues, such as malaria, dysentery, respiratory infections and nutritionrelated illnesses are preventable by simply making small lifestyle changes.

INVESTIGATE: study about what should their country’s society do in order to improve socially and economically.

Education is particularly important to communities that are fragile or rebuilding.

Education provides stability, structure and hope for the future, helping children and youth to overcome trauma caused by war, disaster, or conflict.

Having a safe learning environment also makes children and youth less vulnerable to exploitation, kidnapping, and recruitment by militant groups or organized crime.

CONTRIBUTE IN THE CONSERVATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT: the deforestation in the hills is causing a major change to the landscape and to the climate. As soon as the trees are cut down, the soil is exposed to the rain and, in many places, most of the top soil is washed away into the rivers and eventually into Lake Malawi. This is leaving the hills infertile so that trees and crops do not grow well, and the soil that is being deposited in the lake is affecting fish stocks which, together with overfishing, is causing a dramatic reduction in the number of fish that are being caught in the lake.

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the program To achieve the goals set, and considering the fact that our secondary school will be composed by four academic years, the following program is proposed: - Four classrooms: with a capacity of twenty-five students per classroom.

Your school project should consider that in the future each academic year could be extended to three classrooms per academic year (meaning twelve classrooms in total). But, for now, only four classrooms will be built.

- Teacher office: a space where teachers can have their personal space. Only one office will be needed.

- Computers room: the computer room will be used to teach the students how new technologies can help them.

Approximately 25 computers will be used in this space.

- Library: a place where students can do their homework and have access to some books and additional knowledge out of school time.

- Laboratory/research area: this space is where students will learn Science.

- Animal area: since agriculture is a main point of the country subsistence, it is important for the youth to learn from animals, plants and land cultivating systems.

- Multipurpose space: we can think about this space as a performance and adaptive area, depending on the activity planned to

be done there: dance show, performance, exposition, conference...

- Dry latrine: since there is no current water provision in the country, they will have to use latrines as bathrooms.

- Director and secretary office: an independent space for the director and his or her secretary.

- Meeting room: to attend new student families, internal staff meetings, or external visitors.

- Storage room: a space where cleaning and school material can be kept.

It is also important to have outdoor space inbetween the areas. It is not mandatory to have all the spaces on an only construction.

Keep in mind that, because of the cost and constructive complexity, in the villages of this countries they only construct one floor buildings.

Apart from this central program, you also have to take into consideration: - Students dormitories, with a capacity of 100 students, divided by male/female rooms. It must include showers and a dining room.

- Twelve basic houses composed of three bedrooms per house, shower, kitchen and a dinning room for the teachers family who will be living there.

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interview with Fernando Aguirre

Fernando Aguirre is a catholic priest, he’s been working in Malawi for 5 years now.

He was in Kenya for 22 years before that.

The first time he came to Africa he was 19 years old. He immediately fell in love with the people and the place, and he decided this is where he wanted to live for the rest of his life. Now he is leading the initiative of building a secondary school in Benga.

What’s different in Malawi compared with other countries?

Unfortunately, in Malawi there’s a clear lack of adequate and secure access to

resources (education, health, goods…).

Giving people the possibility to access them can help them climb the first step of the “development staircase”. To help them achieve that, we must pay especial attention to women and children.

What do you think about the work of NGO’s in Malawi?

The NGO’s and cooperation agencies are key factors when it comes to improve the country. What’s important here is that they are coordinated with the government in order to work on the same guidelines.

Can you explain us how the education system works?

The education system in Malawi consists in primary, secondary and tertiary school.

The kids spend 8 years in primary school, 4 years in secondary and 3 or 4 years in tertiary (university and colleges). The problem in the country is that there’s been a demographic explosion, meaning that currently 50% of the population is between 0 and 15 years old. In other words, half of the population of Malawi should be attending primary schools, which obviously is impossible since there are around 6.000 primary schools in the country, for more than 5.000.000 people in that age range.

And what’s even worse, there are only 1.000 secondary schools in Malawi, which means that only a 30% of the kids that pass the secondary school entrance test can finally continue their education.

Why are you promoting a new Secondary school in Benga?

When we arrived in Benga we found that there were two areas that needed especial attention: nutrition and education. All the projects that we have been working on in the last 5 years have a component to improve these two areas.

Regarding educational projects, we have opened 3 kindergarten; a primary school with 400 children; we’ve also supported the government’s primary schools by building infrastructure, teacher training or scholarships; and finally we want to build a secondary school to make sure that in the area there’s an educational continuity. We want to build a school that helps children who want to access university.

How many students would the school have, and what would they learn?

The secondary school we want to build would have no more than 30 students per class, which means around 120 students total since we would build 4 classes now.

We would like the school to have training in agribusiness, since here the economy depends mostly on agriculture. Finally, they could also learn ecology, livestock, beekeeping, agriculture, so in addition to receiving a traditional education, they could also learn how to improve the local economy.

How do you want to help Malawi in the medium-long term?

During the first 5-10 years of our intervention we want to help feeding the elderly, giving milk to children whose mothers can’t, feeding children in school, giving small tools and facilitating fertilizers, seeds, etc. In about 15-20 years we would like the people we are helping to study to return and to be the ones leading the local development.

Could you tell us more about the deforestation problem in Malawi?

In Malawi there is an excessive dependence on agriculture. For example, when a couple gets married, what they usually do is chop down a forest area, settle there and cultivate. As this is being done with very little regulation by the authorities, deforestation is already worrying. In addition, the consumption of fuel for kitchens depends on charcoal, which means that large areas of forests are cut to produce charcoal with which they cook in large cities such as Lilongwe or surroundings.

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architecture competition: the results winners and honorable mentions

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1ST PLACE

Ben McMillan, DeQuales Thompson Texas, United States of America The Benga Parish Secondary School is a community-oriented space designed to educate Malawian youth. The concept of this campus finds its origin in the representation of life as a journey along a path. The work seeks to symbolize education as a catalyst for success along this path. The theoretical intention of this concept is to materialize the path to success. Students experiencing the space will physically and symbolically walk this path instinctively taking in the significance and purpose of the path’s design. In theory, the environment will be an everpresent gesture toward conscious action and life-long learning.

The architectural intention of the concept is to create a singular boulevard, accessed by one controlled entry point. The teacher’s village is placed near this entry point to act as a protective element to the dormitories. Roofed in thatch, these homes are postured to mimic the surrounding area. The angular geometry of the homes creates an observable contrast to the curved surfaces of the student-oriented

program. The dormitories have controlled entrance points and flank the boulevard.

The boys are placed near the road to act as a protective element to the girl’s dormitories. The library, embodiment of knowledge, is represented as the ultimate destination. The organization strategy orbiting the library aligns itself to maintain the views from its center to nearby trees. The remaining segments within the radial boundary are used to organize the functions of the school campus, for instance the classrooms arranged in clusters by educational stage.

Through an environmental coordination approach, we conserve and manage the environment using architectural devices to our advantage. Passive cooling, solar energy, on-site water incubation and selective irrigation helps achieve these objectives. Materials, systems and assemblies were designed to be constructed within local availability and resources. The new secondary school in Benga, Malawi is a step forward on the path of success for humankind.

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2ND PLACE

Chang Yuan Max Hsu, Hadeel Ayed Mohammad, Veronika Volkova New York, United States of America Inspiration for the project is drawn from the iconic tree of knowledge and traditional African village typologies. Much like the gathering spaces underneath trees, a series of ringed canopies are formed to provide shade and shelter.

At their centers are the courtyards for sustainable farming and social gatherings. The students learn about the necessary skills involved in maintaining a community, where practical knowledge serves in conjunction with the theoretical.

Education is key to saving the country’s ability to sustain itself. The cultivated courtyards throughout the school are intended to serve as an educational simulation of conservation farming methods that the students can directly interact with. Students will engage in cultivating the farms with alternating crops such as maize, legumes and sweet potatoes to preserve soil nutrients. Waste collected will be converted to compost used to fertilize the crops and seedlings alike. The farming products are used as food, and any excess can be sold or donated to the local communities.

The circular resource management

minimises both the footprint (existing trees are preserved) and institutional expenses while providing an incentive for the high school student to continue their education.

The design utilizes local craftsmanship and vernacular sensibility with the sustainable building systems and technologies. All materials are locally sourced. Clay bricks walls are built upon a concrete/stone foundation. They are laid out in an alternating perforation pattern to allow ample amounts of light to penetrate through. At the same time, these openings help to mitigate temperature and air flow. A thatched roof system comprised of straws on wood/steel columns sit on top of the wall foundations. Their direct rainfall into the gutters for collection, protect the bricks below from disintegration, and provide cover for the users. Atop of thatch a layer of solar panels is fixed, serving as a source of energy for the school equipment and the water pumps. The efficiency of these systems’ utilization will ultimately assist in the creation of a sustainable community prototype.

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3RD PLACE

Alberto Pottenghi, Luca Astorri Milano, Italy Courtyard building as a community building.

Inspired by the traditional compound, where rural communities’ lives sharing resources, knowledge and simply daily life, courtyards are the key to create different “micro cosmos� with different functions and atmospheres.

The courtyards, composed by different classes and students of different ages, are thought to recreate the social dynamics of a rural community where young children spend time with older children. This will generate a participative spirit and increase their sociability.

The entire project is planned to be built by local builders using local materials.

This choice is an answer to the scarcity of resources and it should encourage the community to maintain the building during the following years.

Buildings are placed on a basement, against humidity and flooding, and

walls are made out of stabilized soil bricks. These bricks will provide thermal protection and are also cheap and easy to produce.

Perforated ceiling allows maximum ventilation, pulling cool air in from the windows and releasing hot air out through the holes. Shading for the buildings comes from metal shutters, and screens made out of eucalyptus sticks, which are placed on the sides most exposed to the sun. This will create an area where temperatures are lower than outside, and it will cool down the air flow into the classrooms.

The entire project is based on a module that meets the dimension of a well-defined standard classroom, which has been used to respond to the entire program, with the exception of the multipurpose building.

The multipurpose building, as well as the main courtyards, will be used by the students but, potentially, also from the local community for important events.

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4TH PLACE

Victor Matheus Correa, Guilherme Xavier, Guilherme Dacas, Lucas Trentin Caxias do Sul, Brazil The deep relation of local culture to community living in villages and the axial centrality of these relationships within the framework of self-protection and development are historical bases that shape the design premises.

The school is born of the meeting between the central cores of the program: education and housing. The intrinsic basis of the program’s relationship is the essence of the exchange movement, the generating matrix of the architecture proposal. The exchange between student and teacher, culture and knowledge, must be continuous, infinite. It is the infinity point that one establishes the territorial framework and element of centrality of the whole. The cultural and spiritual celebration of this local identity.

Designed to be executed in phases, the education and housing core programs are configured to form courtyards, maintaining a community garden for cultivation and maintenance by users, an ornamental structure that makes studying and living more attractive.

The link between the space of educating and living is made through a noble space, whose purpose is to celebrate the culture of peoples and serve as an access to the

whole. It stands out for the monumentality of the coverage, which for an exclusive use, justifies itself as a territorial and hierarchical framework in the whole. The intention is to create a plot in the sky, to incorporate the culture, to expose in architecture the soul of the people.

The construction seeks to value regional and local aspects, giving priority to a new possibility of generating different work opportunities. Clay, local material, associated with handcrafted block production techniques is the basis of constructions. Clay block masonry runs with ‘distinct textures’. Opaque to preserve the inner spaces with privacy and a plot of hollow blocks that delimit adjacent spaces, suggesting semiprivate, transitional and collective spaces. This plot ends up being adopted as a socio-cultural character, printed in the work as a fabric that surrounds the complex. To the cover, a double system: slab of brick vaults, with empty spaces at the ends, allowing cross ventilation inside the building; on which a metallic system - trusses and roof tiles - is supported, distant from the vaults, creating an air mattress between systems, also, allowing the rainwater to collect. On the roof ,in some buildings, solar panels were designed to capture solar energy.

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5TH PLACE

Maxime Potiron, Félicie Botton Paris, France The circular shape of the school symbolizes balance, harmony, exchange and gathering. These are major prerequisites to give education a central position and encourage schooling in Benga. The project is inspired by the principies of permaculture that promote a programmatic arrangement according to needs, a vernacular bioclimatic design, a link between elements to encourage diversity and last but not least the selection of biosourced materials.

The program is conceived from the center outward: The school building is organized in two parts: a circular ring that shelters the school program and, in the center, the classrooms facing the patio. Between the ring and the classrooms, a wattle wall creates a screen, brings rhythm and leads to the different spaces. The aim of this wall is to make the addition of classrooms easier: it is used as a support to apply mud and become the first wall of each class. The bathrooms and latrines are in separate buildings to preserve hygiene. Further, the teachers’ houses are scattered in the terrain in order to provide privacy.

An environment-friendly architecture: - the roof overhangs and the wattle wall provide protection from the sun or rain - the ventilation of the spaces is ensured by holes in the building elements - the rainwater collected from the roof is reused - the technical elements (water tank, solar panels) are located near the needs.

The patio, central space of the project is a place of exchange and sharing: lt can be alternately used as a playground, a meeting place, a market or an exhibition hall: it is the “multipurpose space”.

Thanks to a simple system of posts and canvases, the patio is evolutive according to needs. The air is cooled thanks to the evapotranspiration of the endemic trees and offers a breath of fresh air. The aim is also to raise awareness among students of the importance of nature in an ecosystem.

AII the materials are local and sustainable: They are revisited in an original way while guaranteeing a simple implementation in order to highlight the local know-how, diversify it and allow the appropriation of the building by the inhabitants of Benga.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Nikolai Mina, Lady Roxanne Mina Singapore, Singapore The proposal for the new secondary school aims to create a new center that would empower the student and community through education. By creating new facilities that are conducive to learning and accommodating to new experiences, the design sought to encourage a sense of unity, learning and social interaction in the project.

One of the main goals of the design was to support community building by allowing both students and community members ownership to the use and development of the project. By fostering a culture of education, the project responds not only to the immediate need for a new educational facility but also assist in the uplifting of the socio-economic culture of the people in the community as well.

The architectural language of the school is simple yet distinct; forms and organization that celebrate simplicity and functionality while utilizing modern technology to optimize layout plans based on natural light, shade, ventilation and solar orientation. By understanding the local climate and context, the design aims

to be thoughtfully conceived while using locally sourced materials. In response to the growth of the institution, all of the buildings are modular in plan and structure to meet the future expansion of the school, dormitories and teacher housing. The choices of materials also ensure that adding and repairing of buildings and other amenities would only require traditional building methodologies and could be done with the help from the locals/members of the community.

The site development plan aims to achieve a programmatic design-centric strategy where spatial designs evolve based on programmatic needs, translating to flexible spaces that avoid fixed solutions to programmatic functions, leaving spaces open to interpretation where different functions are imagined beyond functional expectations. Lastly, to successfully achieve sustainability in the future, the design gives great importance on community building as the designers believe that structures can only achieve so much without the support of its community.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Pia Marziano, Rene Montaño, Juan Pablo Uribe Viña del Mar, Chile The Secondary School turns to the preexisting instances, proposing a new space compatible with the activities of the Parish, the Primary School and the community of Benga. The “Community Square” is presented as a multipurpose space in which children can play and, at the same time, the community can use for their meetings, dances, etc. In this way the family also takes a leading role in the educational process of their children.

The project aims to transform this space into a pole of attraction to which the different school programs converge, reinterpreting the phenomenon of “grouping”, an identity aspect of African culture. This concept as an educational axis, together with the proper distribution of the program in different axial paths, allows completing a didactic cycle that starts from the dormitories, passes through the classrooms, and reaches the area of laboratories, agricultural practice and livestock. On the other hand, it seeks to generate a closeness between theory and practice through cultivation patios between the classrooms, making the educational process more interactive and establishing a fabric between the buildings and the spaces dedicated to

agricultural activity.

The patios articulate the paths, enhancing the use of outdoor space, characteristic of living in Africa. The outdoor space becomes the “habitable” connector of the entire educational structure, where the existing trees are always present.

To maximize the results with the minimum available resources, a simple construction system is used: clay brick walls, dried grass ceiling and metal roofs. The climatic comfort is guaranteed by the roof that rises through light metal trusses, generating a ventilation space that avoids the overheating of the buildings; the dried grass ceiling helps keep the interior comfortable, while the eaves protect the buildings from erosion caused by sun and rain.

This system is combined with the implementation of perforated bricks and colored paints, which decorate the school with striking traditional designs made by local people.

In this way the school not only functions as an educational center, but also as a symbol of Malawi’s culture, which invites people from different places to meet.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Elmira Jafari, Erfan Farahmand Delft, The Netherlands Education can take place everywhere, not merely in the classical form of schools. To boost the capabilities and talents of students, school can function as a life village by involving varied activities, landscapes, green spaces, and playgrounds into the learning process.

From this vantage point, providing open spaces with various characters, and activating them as dynamic educational spaces is the major goal of the project.

This allows to expand educational activities outside of the classrooms and to integrate education with nature and open spaces. Cultivating a farm land or a group work in the open air can teach the students life skills, enhance their experience of togetherness, and nurture their potential creativity. The school, therefore, consists of a series of courtyards articulating the educational and living spaces: (1) courtyards of classrooms and dormitories which provide tranquil open spaces for students’ contemplation; (2) farming courtyards which are dispersed throughout the site; (3) dynamic educational courtyards with continuous colonnades, which not only interconnecting diffuse spaces, but also provide a vivid environment for the socialization of students, as they are the

main citizens of the village.

To achieve the goal of integrating educational buildings with open spaces, the spatial organization of open, closed and semi-open areas was the main challenge of the project. The school is organised in five large zones (two classrooms, two dormitories and one communal zone) that are clustered around a main central courtyard. In addition, the east side hosts the teachers’ housings which benefits a main pedestrian and a car axis connecting the housing zone to the road. The main façade facing the road is designed partly transparent and accessible to improve the possibility of integration of the school with the surrounding neighbourhood, more importantly to create a linkage with the primary school locating on the other side of the road. In so doing, the school’s entrance square with folding doors can be opened to the neighbourhood, and can function as a public square. As a result, the multipurpose building and the canteen sitting in the two corners of the square can also serve the community, while the square is supervised from the director room, located at the heart of the school.

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HONORABLE MENTION

BIHE Architectural Department New Jersey, United States of America The aim of this design proposal is to create a variety of spaces that enable students to look beyond the realities of their learning subjects, such as mathematics and science. They simply do not have to stay for a long time in the classrooms, having the opportunity to experience deeper qualities. Learning Path is a fluid path that goes through the entire complex of classes. By defining this path the learning spaces are not limited to the classrooms, extending to outdoor spaces while removing all the physical boundaries. Through this flexibility of the educational system, it is possible to nurture the abilities of the students, bringing them to a higher stage of selfawareness about their talents.

Outdoor workshops allow students to apply their learnings from lessons to the field in order to produce, work, and earn money. Classroom doors in this fluid system are open to educational nodes in order to create an adaptable environment for learning. Classrooms are aimed to go beyond the classical spatial definition in a way to encourage students to learn more. Students who are in different classes of the same academic level are provided with the opportunity to interact with nodes by opening the doors, which

extend the learning space. Two circular and square forms, provide students with the opportunity to experience different spatial qualities and feelings. So the students are able to experience different learning modes and broaden their knowledge during the academic year by changing their classes.

Furthermore, children can participate in the production of their own food by being part of the plants’ and trees’ cultivation.

In order to connect with local people and maintain the extraverted quality of this complex, the school community is located in a perfect contact with the neighborhood, which makes the students regularly communicate with local community to introduce their products, besides the events that are held at school. By following this educational concept we hope that this school increases the skill and knowledge of children and adolescents in Malawi.

Proposed educational layout helps the students to grow in different aspects of individual and collective life, such as economics, health, human interactions and culture. This training can certainly focus on the strengths of each student and encourage him or her through the process of learning by doing.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Francisco Polo Tobarra Murcia, Spain The objective of this project is to try to find solutions to the initial problems, such as an extensive program that must be developed in a single plant, existing trees that must be protected and the need to provide constructive systems suitable for the place. All this taking into account the need to create spaces between the buildings that bring life to it, as well as the climatic conditions, that is, solutions for sunlight creating spaces with shade and take advantage of the fresh winds.

The project separates the three main uses into three connected buildings, thus

giving a different environment to each one without affecting the correct functionality of the whole. Each of these buildings has a central patio that relates all the rooms and gives a common space, where there are places to sit, trees, places to play ...

The constructive system used, aims to be simple and flexible, based on a modular system that allows you to easily add or remove pieces, as well as make them larger or smaller. In addition to incorporating cheap and accessible materials in the area.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Andrew Duffin, Carmit Harnik Saar, Gaurav Bhatewara Milsons Point, Australia Our design draws from the woven textures and patterns found in the Malawi culture. A community woven together is as strong as all the strands that make a weave: faith, education, socialization, and habitation. Through patterns, roof forms, and site layout, three main zones are woven together: Education, Student Dormitories, and Teacher Residences.

Within the distinct zones, building patterns and simple trussed roof shapes define enclosed and open spatial arrangement that evoke a woven pattern.

The open spaces generate a sense of community and togetherness allowing clear circulation paths and ordered navigation.

The materiality is simple and supports local resourcing. Clean, simple metal roofs on a timber/steel truss system with long protective overhangs; locally sourced brickwork arranged with an open weave to encourage good ventilation; woven natural screens to openings and ceilings evoke the story of our design.

Environmental and economic sensitivities are a primary focus in the design.

The woven site plan is arranged to center its view lines to the Church across

the road. The end result will realize a strong, safe, and nurturing campus. The Education Buildings that form the first stage will establish from early on, the themes of: co-operation, collaboration, and community.

Education in this environment will create a sense of lifelong learning and empower young people to play a strong part in the community. The new school will create opportunities for learning from the natural and built environment. Flexibility in learning styles will allow for gathering spaces, team-work and individual work.

Learning spaces will be flexible to create double classrooms when larger gatherings are needed, and seamless connections allow outdoor learning in courtyards or under trees.

The Dormitory arrangements are separated into male and female zones, both centered on their own courtyard. A shared Dining Hall will bring the school community together. The Staff Residential Zone will create a precinct that connects with the campus while ensuring a good level of privacy. The woven arrangement of buildings creates a central courtyard to reinforce a sense of comunity.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Donghua Chen, Shaoyi Liang, Huiting Huang, Huabao Lu Guangzhou, China Inspired by the artifact and nature in Africa, we spire, twine and converge different programmatic layers together as a consistent but differentiated field.

The power of convergence brings different programs and people together as a whole community, and re-define traditional education in an innovative and interactive way.

The spiral rooms serve as the school to teach and learn, while the space in between as the farm to practice and produce. Also, this physical school is the solid incarnation of knowledge and experimental appearance of theory by exerting different scientific techniques in the construction. It is a natural mechanism full of beautiful phenomenon, triggers the children’s immanent curiosity, and inspires them to investigate and discover.

It is an educational building and it is a building that educates.

1. Course as system knowledge: The school buildings are three spiral loops of archipelago, but covered by a continuous undulatory roof. Under the same roof people can engage in different courses and activities, ranging from active sports in the exterior loop to the gathering art performance in the interior courtyard.

Also, between each two buildings, there will be a corner covered by shading mesh and plants for students to communicate.

The program is re-organized not only as an efficient convergence of function, but also as excursive events occurring at different corners of these interweaving layers.

2. Farm as live knowledge: The farm is the educational area for students to learn about animals, plants and land cultivating systems because agriculture is the main subsistence in Malawi. Moreover, this farm will be the actual productive area after the students learn and practice, associated with the outside experts and farmers to perform and demonstrate.

Students and teachers will witness and share their fruitful achievement at different seasons.

3. Architecture as solid knowledge: Architecture is an expressing and educating object. The technique of reusing and re-inventing nature will be deployed and performed in different parts of the buildings and field. The building itself is the educational machine, enlightening students to observe and study the natural geometry, physical phenomenon, chemical experiments, ecological strategies, etc.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Raissa Gattera, Letícia Sitta, Thais de Freitas Jundiaí, Brazil “There are schools that are cages and there are schools that are wings. Schools that are cages exist for birds to unlearn the art of flight. Caged birds are birds under control. Caged, its owner can take them wherever they want. Caged birds always have an owner. They are no longer birds. Because the essence of the birds is the flight.

Schools that are wings do not love caged birds. What they love are birds in flight.

They exist to give birds the courage to fly.

To teach how to fly, that they can not do, because the flight is already born within the birds. The flight can not be taught. It can only be encouraged.” [Rubem Alves].

What should a school want to be in order for its birds to have the courage to fly?

The primary function of education is learning, which is an exchange that happens in the collective. In that way we come to understand that the school is no longer physically delimited, so it gains space. Space that leaks without asking permission. Space that is the streets,

the city, the nature. The school happens everywhere, because in all places we are capable of learning. And when its walls are diluted in the community, the school becomes both the transforming agent of the territory and the territory itself.

By extrapolating the walls of the classroom, not only learning is impacted, but also the daily lives of families and communities. The neighborhood becomes the stage for the experiences, the territory becomes the study room. The school opens up, recognizing local issues and particularities, valuing cultural plurality and diversity as riches. A place of human interactions, exchanges and encounters between individuals and the environment.

The school then becomes a means for education that is permanent and that takes place beyond the school stage, which teaches to see the world and to deal with the daily challenges. Because educating is a tool for transformation, for citizenship. A tool to fight back the difficulties.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Omar Vergara Mexico City, Mexico To create the conceptual features of this project we asked ourselves: how can we create a space that inspires a sense of belonging for the youth in Benga, and at the same time, becomes a place to bring together local communities? How can we create a milestone that allows coexistence, community organization and decision making, without forgetting its main function as an educational center?

Creating a center was the answer to our project, which is not limited to an educational building, but gives the community a place to come together, thus detonating social interaction. This aspect further reinforces the connections that already happen in the existing church and primary school. The center is the space where diverse practices come together, an inclusive place where everyone is welcomed. Finally, the center is key because it inspires a feeling of empathy and belonging, which favors the development of the local community.

The architectural project seeks to evoke a “center� within each space. We designed open spaces with dynamic rooms that can easily adapt to diverse educational activities. We also designed playgrounds

where people of different group ages can play, read, or just hang out. The main entrance functions as an outdoor forum, which allows diverse activities, not only for the secondary school, but also the local community. The project also includes large open spaces where people can have fun and learn about agriculture, animal care, and other relevant issues.

The project is inspired and uses local materials, rainwater and solar energy.

It also gives priority to accessibility for diverse group ages and abilities. In addition, the project follows a progressive growth-model, delimited by a deck that serves as a designing guide, that in the future can help to develop an acute functioning of the space as it grows.

The diverse sections of the project arise from its base, which is cemented on the ground and favors easy access. On this base, there are walls made of clay bricks; the walls are supported by a concrete structure and steel elements. Finally, we designed a double deck consisting of a Catalan vault and a steel panel deck.

This double deck has three objectives: protecting from the sun, ventilating interiors, and collecting rainwater.

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HONORABLE MENTION

Joshua MacDonald, Jonas Swienty Callander, Canada The project, “This is not a school,” aims to redefine our traditional perceptions of education and reimagine the archetype of the classroom. Education does not only transpire within the confines of four walls, and the opportunity to learn exists in our everyday lives and the spaces that surround us. Our goal is to create a project that can facilitate as many unique learning opportunities and spaces as possible in order to create the best achievable educational conditions.

community in the planning of the project.

Through this collaboration, we hope to give the users a greater sense of ownership to the project in its planning phases while also providing local involvement to the construction. The given solutions in this proposal accommodates the needs of the school today while anticipating the future demands and growth of an expanding school in a sustainable way.

The project is comprised of a catalogue of unique and playful building types that when combined together to create a sequence of distinct but harmonious educational spaces, can create something much greater, a community. We strongly believe in not creating a singular structure that restricts the students and the teachers to the indoors. By avoiding this common classroom archetype, learning is translated from within the building to the outdoors and the interstitial spaces between them. It is in these spaces between the buildings where students can learn from each other and their surroundings, and foster a greater sense of community.

One the greatest issues that Malawians face today is the continuing advances of deforestation. Through the planting of tree nurseries within the site we hope to use these trees as a way to educate the students of the importance of protecting their local environment. The proposal eventually turns the nurseries into woodlots that will be a sustainable solution that will support the schools need for cooking and other uses. Larger plots of trees will be planted in various bare locations in order to anticipate future development. When the time comes to expand the school, the fast growing woodlots will be cutdown in place and replaced by the next generation of buildings selected from the catalogue of programs.

Each building has a unique footprint, roof structure and color accent, giving the spaces individuality and identity within the greater school community.. While we propose options for potential placements of these buildings on the site, which we believe possess the greatest collaborative synergies, the goal is to involve the

The project, “This is not a school,” weaves together the best conditions for learning and community while at the same time playfully creating a strong foundation to encourage ideas, sustainable awareness and make the users feel a stronger connection to it. It is not a school, it is much more.

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architecture competition: the results selected proposals

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Hanee Murtuza Karachi, Pakistan The school is explored as where formal and informal educations are integral part of each other. The informal educational spaces like amphitheatre, court yards, playing fields and games have been enclosed by formal educational spaces like class rooms. The idea was to encourage the students to explore the informal education and to create spaces that can educate the students about the environmental and other circumstantial challenges by exploring them as potentials and opportunities. There are spaces where children can learn and enjoy their schooling together; such spaces offer outdoor environments for learning and play. Such play is not just a leisure activity but it is how children learn. The spaces are connected in such away to create the relationship between hands-on children education and playbased learning, and also, to motivate them to explore their intellectual, social and physical development.

Master plan is developed as a series of connecting informal spaces where physical activity is associated with playing environments. Strong axial connections are developed through zoning, modular arrangement of spaces and connecting pathways. Playing spaces are created as an exhibit space of different games.

The informal spaces sought ideas for outdoor play and introverted learning environments. Each space has been associated with a different type of interaction and playing opportunities.

Kids can climb on the walls and play with

the interaction of lights. The dormitories and teachers housing has been arranged informally to create communal spaces.

The classes are designed as a modular structure. There are two classes in a module. Two modules of classrooms i.e 4 class rooms will be constructed in phase 1. The phase 1 has been designed in such a manner that the school building will look complete even after its construction.

The administration block at the entrance is linked by the pathways and corridors which give access from every room to the court.

The use of local materials is explored in the design process which promote the exchange of knowledge and celebrating of human and natural resources. The following materials are explored as per space requirement: Brick Walls: The double brick with cavity is used in wall to create the micro climate.

Windows: The windows are in wood.

Window shutter: The window shutter have bamboo cross sections with color filled glass.

Sloping Roof: MS sheet are used for sloping roof with sarkanda (thin bamboo) or wooden purlin as additional layer underneath to support and create micro climate inside the space.

Beams: The wooden trussed beams are designed in sloping way not only to support the corrugated metal sheet but also create interesting third dimension inside the space.

Flooring: Brick tiles and concrete tiles.

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Marco Bellomo, Giuseppe Bellomo, Marco Sollami Palermo, Italy Africa, since the first anthropological studies, is recognized as the place of primordial life. This is our start point for the analysis of the project. The Pangea of the world that sees in the center what will become Africa, has inspired us seeking the “beginning of life”. As Africa is the center of the world origin, the cell is the origin of life as we know it. The cell has an organic, ordered and perfect organization.

This has oriented us towards a project like an organic and organised cell, as a set of small elements that are called insulae and that contain classrooms, laboratories, multipurposespaces, houses and dormitories. These insulae create a participatory and common genius loci, oriented towards teaching and living together to create community.

The insulae are characterized by a double roof necessary for both summer and winter thermal insulation. Below the roof there are four spaces: a classroom, a common area, a storage/office and drylatrines . The classrooms are designed to study nature and agriculture. Inside the open space there are modular tables that can be positioned freely, a greenhouse and, in the openings, pots that contain plants.

The insulae identify paths and open places such as the “open-air theater” and the green areas for the vegetables garden and the outdoor agriculture study. The “theater”, located between the classrooms and the “village”, is a place for exhibitions and performances it is the fulcrum of the cell. The “empty” insulae to the south area will have the new classrooms of the school in the future.

The dormitories and the teachers’ houses identify a small village made of “alleys” and houses. This is composed as a protective hug for school children, being the houses placed around the dormitories.

There are two types of houses, one with a terraced roof and one with a thatched roof, as reference to the different types of villages in southern Malawi.

The use of the double roofs allows passive cooling and thermal insulation thanks to the passage of air. The roof is composed with brisesoleil in wood and also corrugated metallic sheets, which will sustain solar panels. Below this there will be a neoprene layer to reduce sound pollution created by rain and wind. All the walls are thick enough to allow excellent thermal inertia.

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Orestes Valella New Jersey, United States of America Our proposal for a new secondary school in the community of Benga, Malawi is based on the belief that Architecture has the power to bring joy, inspiration, and a sense of well-being to an individual as well as to a community, regardless of the cost of the undertaking or the materials employed.

Our project is based on the following three basic principles: A building should respect the culture of the people it serves, it should acknowledge the climate and terrain in which it is located, and should be built of local materials that are familiar to its users and are ecologically sound.

The school has been divided into three separate but intertwined areas- the school proper, the dormitories with dining hall, and the teacher’s residences. Each of these three areas has been organized around a central courtyard. Some courtyards will be planted with fruit trees while others will be established with vegetable gardens, ultimately as a source of food as well as an educational tool.

Circulation is provided via “narrow streets�; a covered walkway between classrooms and open courtyards that encourage a sense of community.

The main building material is compressed earth bricks. The bricks will be manufactured onsite, thus reducing the cost of acquisition and eliminating the environmental damage and deforestation associated with the burning of wood to make fired bricks.

The roofs are clad in corrugated metal sheets, a material that the local builders are experienced with. The roofs are framed in steel shapes, WF or tube sections, as deemed most suitable.

Rainwater coming off the roofs will be collected in underground cisterns and used for irrigation.

The basic architectural profile is that of the shed roof. This profile has the benefit of being relatively easy to build, while naturally allowing for the hot air to rise and escape at the uppermost part of the roof. Deep overhangs have been provided to protect the spaces below from the hot rays of the sun and from the rain.

All spaces are modular in nature, meaning that the school can be built as funds become available. Multiple phases of construction are proposed for this project.

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Maria Flores, Carolina Paredes, Pahola Estrada, Gabriela Rodríguez San Juan, Puerto Rico Keeping in mind that deforestation has been a major setback to maintaining the region’s environmental and ecological balance, the design team sought to preserve and celebrate the existing trees within the site, understanding that this creates opportunities for natural shading, exterior learning spaces, and a general learning culture where students can get to know the savannah woodland, its agriculture and livestock. Secondly, our proposal respects any existing circulation spaces and connections in existing context. The siting of the secondary school volumes are on a mimetic axis parallel to the orientation and siting of the existing primary school at the other side of the tar road.

The design limits itself to a material palette of clay, stones, wood and iron.

Material selection was guided not only by what is available in local context, but also taking into consideration the weight of individual elements, ease of construction by a non-specialized labor force and other design considerations of place and aesthetics. The organizational strategy behind design decisions emphasizes modularity and repetition of form.

Cross-ventilation is encouraged by incorporating voids within brickwork patterns made of clay to alternated shifting exterior façades. Internal walls are structural and load-bearing of the roof system above. Sunlight to the interior is harnessed and transformed into a uniform and diffused light by the implementation of a layer of scalloped canvas at internal ceiling. Taking into consideration the warmer months leading up to November in sub-tropical climate, hot air can dissipate between the layer of canvas and the hexagonal grid space frame aloft. Solar panels are contemplated above the communal kitchen areas, sufficient in quantity to run fans and kitchen equipment, and can also be placed on top of cisterns for water provision and rainwater harvesting between interstitial classroom spaces.

The proposal can be built in phases, from east to west. Once all phases are built, the master plan will complete a campus quadrangle, with the central arena patterned following the local tradition of beaded necklaces and chitenges textile patterns in order to create a nexus between local craft and the empowerment of its people.

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Leonardo Boganini, Elisa Belardi, Giulia Piccioli, Raffaella Raimandi Florence, Italy Pa Khoma school project has been developed adopting a bioclimatic approach that defines public spaces able to adapt and follow the evolution of the village, coping with environmental changes problems. The main objective of the project is to promote active involvement of young people in the village life and enable their future integration and education. The concept that lies underneath the project derives from environmental, social and cultural analysis that take into consideration spaces orientation and connections, green system and passive environmentalcontrol strategies. The project defines a sustainable and easily replicable school village that strategically combines consolidated construction traditions and local skills with high quality comfort conditions, resources management and renewable energies.

The building’s layout acts as the main bioclimatic moderator while the introduction of the green system, as the second moderator, is useful to improve the external environment conditions. In correspondence of each tree, a square

with different significance was created: the main square, squares for outdoor lessons and small squares in front of the houses. This system of squares is entirely connected by paths equipped with seats made of rammed earth. Buildings are divided into various volumes connected by ground paths and the pergola system.

Each building module of the school is placed directly on the ground and has a flat roof.

The project is realized through locally available materials and self-construction technologies. Externally massive walls of rammed earth are oriented according the prevalent wind direction and a ventilated roof with a wooden canopies system, each module is closed by a wooden structure, vertically screened with bamboo to create privacy inside. This system helps to reduce the heat island around the building, acting as a moderator of temperature. The project promotes a cheap, self-repeatable technology, with low-maintenance requirements that reduced management costs. Thanks to its flexibility, the project can be adapted to different contexts.

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Federico Caserta, Francesco Casini, Gianmarco Lucarini, Fiamma Ficcadenti Rome, Italy Our project is a place where studying goes along with discovering, playing, socializing, cohabitating and sharing. It is not only meant for kids to study, but also to be made responsible through the maintaining of orchards, gardens and animals.

All buildings are arranged in a ring layout with a green courtyard in the middle, where gardens, orchards and playgrounds take over. The different functions are designed as “stations� along a continuous path where kids can move freely through their daily routine.

The ring is a spatial device that embraces all functions to both stimulate socialization and protect from the outside through a brick fence, so kids won’t be intimidated by outer threatens. Its consistent path is only broken at the entrance, reaching out like a hand and inviting to step in.

The buildings connect to the ring in an easy-to-build layout, optimized to balance interiors and openair spaces throughout three main construction phases. Second and third phases consist of just filling

the gaps between the first-phase walls.

In the future, additional buildings can be plugged into the ring just like pearls to a necklace, strengthening even more its identity.

Simple and functional shapes make the project feasible, fast to build and easy to extend in the future. We designed generous additional spaces such as a recycling lab, to learn how to give a second life to the waste, a small nursery for the health education of the kids.

Rainwater from the roofs is collected into tanks to be re-used through the dry season for the kids to shower, to water the animals and in the gardens. Photovoltaic panels provide electricity while waste from the latrines is thought to be used as a heating source and fertilizer. The outer walls are thought to provide a protective environment, also filtering the Eastern winds. Buildings are designed with a natural cooling system consisting of small round openings placed just under the rooftop, higher than the perimeter wall to intercept the breezes and cool down the roof metal sheet.

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Giovanni Pena, Hicham Ghoulem Houston, United States of America Imagine if students were responsible for the growth of their school, not figuratively, but actually in charge of designing their own future classrooms. In “The School We Grow�, students will be the architects in charge of the expansion of their school.

Instead of simply adding an additional detached structure in the future, we have provided space in between classrooms and the structure for the roof which will allow students to infill the space with bamboo and add their personality to the new rooms. The students will be in charge of growing the bamboo and this process will supplement their education by teaching them social responsibility, discipline, and work ethic. Values that they will carry with them long after graduation.

The students will also learn about sustainability not only from books, but by seeing how their school: takes advantage of natural ventilation, responds to solar orientation, collects water for irrigation, uses strategic daylighting, grows building materials and food, uses animal waste as fertilizer, and harnesses solar power.

We were very inspired by the image of the students gathering under the tree. This image inspired us to design an outdoor classroom in the heart of the school around of an existing tree. Seeing the vital role that trees play we designed the campus around the trees and managed to keep all of the existing trees. It was also very important for us for everyone to have access to a courtyard. The school has a large courtyard where students can gather. The dormitories also have a large courtyard where all students can play. The teachers’ houses have two courtyards, a private courtyard, and larger courtyard for larger gatherings and traditional cooking. We incorporated a combination of local materials and modularity for ease of construction, and cost savings.

We hope The School Grow can be a place where students get more than a traditional education, but also have the opportunity to become active members of their community while learning real world skills.

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Gary Robson Southampton, United Kingdom The design has been developed with a focus on ‘the future’. Topics were researched at various scales to understand the requirements of the local area and how the education of future generations can benefit the development of Malawian society, we investigated: climatic change, educational development, economic opportunities and constraints, sustainability of local resources and innovative systems.

Initial investigations into predicted climate change in Malawi found that the current climate will become hotter and dryer in the coming years affecting both the use of the campus buildings and how agricultural farming methods may need to be taught.

The changes in climate will affect the comfort of the occupants using the school therefore, the campus buildings have been designed as a function of current and expected future climate conditions in order to extend the design life of the buildings. Simple passive design strategies have been incorporated into the buildings designs to mitigate climate change impacts, including: thermal mass with night purge, cross ventilation of rooms, adequate daylight, double roof structures and shaded spaces for outdoor teaching.

The changes in climate will also impact

the agricultural industry in Malawi. The design of the school campus seeks to demonstrate ways to alleviate these impacts using innovative techniques such as: rainwater harvesting and greywater irrigation around the school to extend the growing season and to improve student health and wellbeing by providing areas of green space and planting plots to demonstrate agricultural methods. Additionally, our research found that the fish stocks in Lake Malawi are being depleted faster than they can be replenished. Therefore, we have added a space to the scheme to be used to research aquaponic systems. To demonstrate to future generations of farmers how the farming of fish and production of greens and vegetables can be designed to work together as a mutually beneficial system.

We have paired this space with the multiuse space and teachers offices as a separate building to be used as a centre of excellence for the school.

We have kept construction methods simple and in keeping with what local labours should be familiar with, utilising the proposed material palette to reduce costs. The architecture lends itself to a modular (insitu not prefabricated) way of constructing the buildings to allow the phased development of the site but with an overall masterplan demonstrated for a holistic design approach adding value the campus design.

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Alec Ring Toronto, Canada Extending out from the entrance core are three distinct areas. Pairs of classrooms to the west surround the book, seed and tool library. To the north, the student living spaces radiate out from a central learning garden while dividing the male and female dorms. The learning garden cascades down from the multipurpose food hall terrace to the barn and livestock enclosures to the north. Mixing agricultural and residential programs in this area infuses agricultural learning into the daily lives of the students. Staff residences to the south are separated by a row of classrooms and trees to provide increased privacy. Building relationships throughout the site create a variety of exterior environments for both structured and unstructured learning, while artwork panels on the building facades allows for curated student work to enhance the experience of the school.

Solar panels on the library roof are in close proximity to the main power draws, the specialized classrooms and kitchen. Water is collected from the dormitory roofs by gravity and fed to a central underground tank where it can be accessed for the garden. A pump at the raised water tanks above the kitchen can replenish the tanks from either the underground garden tank or in emergencies from the bore hole

at the entrance. The planting of trees throughout the site and garden provide micro-climates suitable for humans and agriculture. These micro-climates assist in: maintaining soil moisture; reducing water and nutrient run-off; and shade sensitive crops. Sludge from food waste and the latrines is collected and either used as compost fertilizer for the gardens or in the anaerobic digester, providing fuel for the kitchen and nutrients for the garden.

The buildings are oriented east-west to maximize wind movement through the site on hot summer days. Windows, doors and wall fins are designed to act as wind scoops to capture the dominant east winds. Pitched roofs and clerestory windows allow for stack ventilation. All the windows and doors are operable and locked from the inside only, providing security while maintaining egress in the case of fire. Large overhangs and operable louvered windows allow for the control of natural lighting and minimize glare within the classrooms.

The design and construction of the buildings demonstrates the potential of using simple construction details and traditional and contemporary materials while creating a consistent and functional aesthetic.

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Feiran Zou, Luming Xiao Pullman, WA, United States of America In Africa, there still exists a weak educational system that is out of date and unable to meet the development of, information-based, daily teaching activities. To remove these limitations, this project is to design a modern rural secondary school facility, which embraces the history of the town, fostering learning techniques of the 21st century, and will constantly evolve to the future learning community.

To be specific, we collected and studied topographic data to explore the villages distribution and their characteristics.

These patterns can make it possible to deduce the local people’s living habits and needs, which can offer important insight into an integral phase in the development of our design. In addition, we sought to understand the features and the utilities of different functional sectors, to further reasonably optimize and integrate the similar functions together in the overall analysis, while trying to meet the design requirements for teaching and learning; as well as the stage construction. In this case, the master plan has been divided into three parts: Residential Area, Educational Area, and Office Space, where functions are independent and overlapped by identifying behavioral

patterns of students and teachers through observation. Specifically, the Residential Area, we considered organizing them in the form of “points” on the southwest part of the given site, since it is relatively quiet.

The Educational Area, we considered to be a necessity for an easy commute; making it easier to communicate with other areas, so we decided to put it in the center of the site. The Office Space, where the faculty will reside for the most part, and observe the ins and outs of their students, was designed to be located in the northeastern part, since it is near to the downtown and highway; therefore, making the environment of the campus a safe and healthy space to occupy.

In closing, this school is designed around three themes: Identity, Adaptiveness, and the Exploration to achieve the nation’s motto of Unity and Freedom, which could be embodied by the building materials, for example, wood structures, thatched roofs and clay bricks. Most importantly, we would like to better the lives of the community and help local government, Benga, to create the vision to implement the strategies, structures and systems of strong leadership to support the project, making the future a realization for Malawians and their youth.

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Christoph Frey, Daniela Pochetto, Jonathan Howell Davies Basel, Switzerland This project is the sum of different uses, and though the program may vary, all parts are built in the same way, as variation or combination of one single constructive unity that respects local resources and traditions.

The aim is to profit from local resources and techniques adding technological thinking into the process, in order to develop a consequent and easy-to-build matrix that could be efficiently applied when and wherever needed.

The radial settlement concept plays a big role here: it follows the existing topography and allows one to build gradually when necessary but following a well-orchestrated sequence. It also allows the heart of the plot to open-up to St. Paul’s community through a ‘heart zone’ where a sports courtyard is placed to serve the whole community and bring it together.

Behind the sports courtyard, the open multipurpose space works as a gathering space and articulates classrooms and complementary programs - equally distributed on the left and right sides on a main ring that promotes exchange and constant use of both courtyard and multipurpose space. Behind the main ring but still part of the ‘heart’ of the plot is the dining and home-work space, articulating but also separating male and female

dormitories. The future classrooms will follow on a second ring, and the professor’s villa on the third and fourth rings, with houses facing each other on a ‘micro-community’. Each house has still its own private courtyard for laundry and cooking.

The system - brick walls and vaults, metal truss, tin roof, water harvesting and solar panels: Walls are built out of are 20 x 40 x 20 cm compressed clay bricks and are 40 cm thick when load bearing (partition walls are 20cm brick walls or furniture elements). Walls are between 2.80m and 8.80m apart from each other and support 2.80m wide ceramic vaults that could be put together as many times as necessary, depending on each specific building.

The vaults have a length of up to 8.80m and are therefore tied down by concrete beams.

The vaults are covered by a light metal truss and a tin metal roof that ensures both water and solar protection and works as a support for water harvesting and the solar panels. Therefore, most modules are north facing for optimal solar exposure.

Walls and vaults could be eliminated for more open spaces such as the dining room or multipurpose space.

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Daniel Lechler Munich, Germany The driving Idea behind this approach was to create a complex that will will respond in a natural way to the rolling landscape and can be integrated in its spacious environment.

The organic yet simple shapes let the the surrounding flow in between it´s gaps and allows the building s to interact with it´s environment. The geometry consist only of basic arcs with different a radius, which allows for easy construction and on site measurements as well as creates a big variety of open and enclosed spaces.

Every area has a clear design language, wich helps with orientation and generates a divers room sequence.

The construction is simple and little knowhow is need to build the structure.

The main Structure is made up of cold burned clay bricks supported by concrete beams and columns. There are two different types of materials used for the construction of the double layered roof.

While the Roof of the teachers houses and the student dormitories is made of corrugated sheetmetal, the roof above the main school complex and cafeteria is

a traditional light thatch roof.

Most rooms including classrooms and living quarters have a massively constructed ceiling wich regulates the room temperature through thermal mass. A lettuce grid of interwoven rebar is locked between two concrete beams and then used as a framework to layer a brick vaulted ceiling above it. The ceiling is then plastered with clay.

Sufficent cross ventilation is key to a comfortably temperate room, so openings in walls have external shutters to allow airflow while giving privacy.

All materials can be local obtained, while all buldingtechniques are either traditional or can be easily taught on site. A construction site is a excellent opportunity to educate construction workers or still untrained workers.

We would recommend to engage in a certain degree of participatory planing and construction with the local community. It raises awareness, educates and builds confidence, trust and a connection to the school before it even starts.

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Pravin Dilwale, Sneha Chavan Pune, India Malawi has been ranked as one of the lowest performing nations for literacy for Sub -Saharan Africa. Demographics show that it faces an intergenerable cycle of poverty, hunger, violence, lack of educational infrastructure, unemployment. in order to break this cycle, it is important to intervene in this “Warm heart of Africa” to create conducive environment to discover the oasis of knowledge in of a remote arid area, hence....KNOASIS Although secondary school education remains a basic public service in many countries across the world, for most people in Malawi, the chance to attend secondary school is something very special. Secondary schooling is a phase where the students start understanding and developing skills in spectrum of fields like music, dance, art, craft, sports... etc. This forms the basis of rethinking the educational system of having an informal approach of learning beyond walls.

DESIGN CONSIDERATION: Creating a educational dwelling which is contented in itself in terms of food , stay, hygiene, scope to learn different techniques of agriculture, animal husbandry, wood and metal work , sports, music.etc apart from formal education. Accordingly open spaces are planned.

SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION: Identifying the functional aspect and their co-relation

spaces are divide into zones as follows: - Administration: Reception, Office, Store, Meeting room, Secretary’s cabin, Director’s cabin - Academic: Classrooms, Laboratories, Teachers room, Library and Toilets - Residential: Boy’s Hostel, Girls Hostel and Staff housing - Ancillary: Dining hall , Overhead water tanks, Animal area etc.

2. In context with the rural scenario of Malawi, modular construction was preferred as it would faciliate fast construction and materials also would be utilized to full extent.

MATERIALS: Locally available materials are selected. Along with initial cost, maintenance cost is also considered - Foundation: Brick Masonry foundation - Walls: Clay fired bricks.

- Ring beam + weathershed at lintel level: Concrete with reinforcing rods used.

- Metal (iron) trussing: easy to assemble, requires less maintenance as compared to timber trussing - Iron sheet: used as finishing roofing material which is further insulated from the inner side Paper mache insulation: shredded paper treated with borate additive is fire retardant & pest, mold resistant.

Concrete grill : it is provided between the trussing and the ring beam. ast as blinds Frameless Central pivot wooden window is provided.

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Chintu Desai, Ysabelle Gamoso, Rozina Radoncic New York, United States of America Education is a basic human right that should be accessible to all children. It is important that they are exposed to basic education in early years to ensure a better quality of life.

Due to lack of education, Malawi is now facing the crisis of deforestation. This alarming issue opened us to look in depth on material choices and its long-term impacts. Our goal is to make sure that the materials we use do not negatively affect the environment. The solution is more than obvious, as it is the material that’s always present on the site -clay bricks.

System: Because of its simple construction method, it can be easily built by the community. Its modularity allows walls to be stacked easily. We propose the rat trap bond method- a brick arrangement with cavities that allows for good insulation. It’s just as strong as the other bonds but uses 25% less brick and mortar.

With the same material, we propose to build the roof. Brick arches are structurally stable and effective in diffusing light inside the room. It does not require dense steel reinforcements; and with the string technique, any arch can be

constructed easily.

Other local materials used are wood screens for windows that defines every building façade in rich colors. They rotate on a center pivot to allow better air circulation and reduce harsh sunlight. Its small width eliminates cost for additional metal framing.

Structure: For structure we propose a scupper beam to hold the arches while drawing rainwater down for harvest. The beam cantilevers along with arches to provide shading.

Programmatically, outdoor learning is very important to us. Aside from the programmatic requirements, we have created diverse spaces that can support more interactive classes. We have added a small farmland next to the animal area where children can learn farming in school, ultimately providing food during the harvest.

Service: Dry latrines and water tanks are placed closer to the perimeter of the plot for easy vehicle access. All streets are designed wide enough to allow a car to move into the site in case of emergency.

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Florence Nyole, Evans Makan Nairobi, Kenya PROGRAM The program of the institution includes a Library, Laboratory, Computer room, Director’s office, meeting room, Secretary Space, Teaching Staff office, Agricultural Field, 12 Classrooms, 2 Dormitories, Dining Hall, and 12 Staff Houses.

CONSTRUCTION PRINCIPLES - Construction materials will be sourced locally.

- Hydra-form compressed earth blocks, made from soil on site will be used for walling, burnt bricks for floors, elephant grass reeds for ceiling and timber for the roof structure.

- High pitched roofs with openings to induce natural ventilation. Large over hangs eaves create ample outdoor shaded spaces, prevent direct light heating up the interior and angular rain from eroding hydroform brick walls.

- Solar panels on the roofs will help the school to be energy independent.

- Wetlands on the lower level of the slope will clean all the black and grey water generated by the school allowing it to be used for landscape irrigation and educational agricultural plots to educate the student on ecosystems and sustainable agriculture.

- Rainwater catchment systems will provide water for laboratories, kitchen and washroom areas.

HUMAN THERMAL COMFORT - The need for rapid ventilation of interiors for structural cooking will be more important.

- Houses are placed to allow free air movement with open and generous spacing of houses is to ensure

free flow of air in and around the houses.

- Planting of trees, shrubs and grass in the spaces between houses will improve thermal and visual environment.

PLANNING - All habitable spaces should be cross ventilated.

- Enclosed outdoor space is desirable in the form of courtyard.

- Verandahs are a traditional of rural houses in Benga region with the front verandah used for relaxing while the rear one used for private activities.

- During the day, the shade of a tree or a verandah acts an outdoor space for relaxation.

STRUCTURE - Roofs should be light and insulated using ceilings to shield interiors from high temperatures and restrict heat loss on cold nights.

- Ceilings made from reeds will help reduce noise and disturbance of heavy rain falling on the sheet roofs.

- Light colored walls and roof finishes will reflect solar heat.

- External finishes in rabbles will prevent driving rain from penetrating the walls and causing dampness and subsequent staining.

OPENINGS - Adjustable louvers are appropriate for this zone. And will be top hung to direct incoming air downwards while reducing visual disturbance.

- Low level air movement for comfort is necessary through low window sill heights no higher than 900mm.

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Simone Ierardi, Valentina Penna, Davide Ventura, Filippo Vayra Genova, Italy The design for the secondary school in Benga, Malawi, starts from two fundamental wills: one is to offer a place where students can learn and study not only school subjects but also social relationship, life skills, health and environmental knowledges. The other main guideline is simplicity: a minimum impact building, that with its pure shape contributes to educate to sharing spaces, suggests freedom in equality and infuse respect for the environment by implementing it without transfiguring it.

The project began from the idea of a linear building that hosts all the requested functions, with an archetypical profile, longitudinally lying on the site. The site conformation, the dimensioning of the spaces, and their composition brought to have two linear buildings, that start close and then open up hugging the existing trees and shaping a third kind of space in between; not internal, not external, a covered space where the activities that take place inside can be expanded and modified. An extensive multi-purpose space that binds the two slat buildings, implementing the teaching experience and the living together.

The managing of air, water and light

are another key point for the design: big openings, that allow to open the classrooms onto the covered space, windows and drilled facades designed to make the rooms breathable and take away humidity alternate themselves in the fronts; educational spaces also have got windows on the roof to let zenithal sunbeams enlighten the rooms. In the lower slope of the truss roof there are gutters that lead the rain water to a draining soil portion that surrounds the overhead walkway on which the buildings rise; this device is useful to keep water and humidity out of the spaces without creating barriers between them and the nearby area. Water tanks are placed in the roofs height concurrently with sinks and showers while solar panels can be installed on the slopes; all the dry latrines are well separated from the other spaces but are at same time integrated in the construction.

The architecture is basically thought to be built with a structure of reinforced concrete curbs, clay bricks walls and roofs with a wooden truss structure covered with metal panels; cement and natural stones pavings complete the project.

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Piera Molfino, Guido Cavallo, Anna Cavallo, Elena Molfino Savona, Italy The Secondary School is developed along the road and makes its important role known in the surrounding territory.

The concept of the project is the replica of a village,� The Village of Culture and Future�, where children can live, play and learn in a friendly and secure environment.

The construction materials used are generally bricks for walls and wood for beams. Sloping roofs are covered with corrugated sheets.

School: The road facing is covered in wood, extending above the roof, supporting and hiding the photovoltaic panels whose apparatus are in the laboratory/research room. Toward the inside, a continuous porch, resting on wooden pillars, serves all the classrooms.

Central building, hearth of the Village, where the daily routines are performed.

Dining room with kitchen, director room and infirmary are located around a multifunctional arena, having a traditional wood and straw roof, supported on wood pillars. It allows for multiple use: conferences, music and dance, theater...

Pupils may sit freely on the large steps or chairs may be put on the central area.

Dormitories, served by a circular porch, face a playground. Are divided in five smaller units allowing sex separation and phased construction. A vegetable garden

is located between the buildings. The steel roof, inclined towards the outside, allows a possible rain water collection and continues to cover the distribution corridors, resting on slim steel pillars.

Animal area and water storage, accessible by trucks, are in the background of the area. The water tanks are separated from the animal area by tall brick wall. A steel roofing provides shelter, hen-house, storage. The semi-circular front fence is by simple wood poles.

Teacher’s houses are foreseen in two units buildings. Are located along pedestrian paths, green areas and a second vegetable garden for their use.

The building may be adapted to the family needs, increasing or decreasing the porch dimensions. The double-tank latrines are in the rear of the houses, accessible from the bed rooms. The front facing is covered in wood and the sloping roof is covered with steel sheets.

A few isolated dry-latrines are freely distributed in the area. They are simple and have a pleasant shape and color for sex separation. Entrance is through a climbing spiral shape leading to the elevated pit.

If finance allow, a rain water collection system may be considered, with two underground reservoirs, connected to the gutters of the buildings.

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Lee Sanghak, Yun Hosung, Kim Inchul, Park Suhjun Seoul, South Korea In general, students are separated from school life during the day and after school.

However, through the physical facilities required in the school presented in the competition, students in Malawi have a life combined with daily life and education.

Therefore, in Malawi, schools have a special situation in which they have to provide the labor environment through agricultural activities as well as solving the food and shelter of students beyond the function of education.

To solve this situation, the school should not simply be determined by the program’s zoning and appearance design.

A new school system is needed that is tailored to the specific routines of the student combined with education and survival.

We suggest the following school direction for this problem.

1. Versatility: A school that can accommodate a variety of changeable programs 2. Accessibility: schools that can provide “homogeneous educational quality and

local living services” anywhere 3. Scalability: Easily and expandable as always

quickly

We propose a school through “modularized” systems and space units as well as “modularized” program packages with architectural solutions for this direction.

The proposed school places the systemized columns first on the virtual grid.

Between the pillars, a wall can be built quickly and easily using various materials that can be procured locally to form a basic unit of space.

And reconfigure the given program into one package. This basic program package combines the classes required to form a sub-level school.

Unitized schools can be combined and expanded as needed to provide scale flexibility. It also has the flexibility of contextual programming for schools through a variety of expanded spaces with the same system.

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Praewa Samachai, Kim Christensen, ChengHan Lee Bergen, Norway How can we provide the best opportunities for the next generation of students in an area facing extreme poverty?

H.O.P.E. Health, Opportunity, Play and Education. This design concept proposed to enhance school, dormitories and surrounding areas to create an safe educational community where everyone has an equal opportunity to become socially responsible by living sustainably.

The project aims to respond to the regional climate by using local affordable materials as an leaning tool for students while enhancing building techniques and environmental awareness to improve self-construction knowledge which can be applied in the local village with alternative locally materials.

Not only does the school spatially simulate student’s activities but so do the dormitories; at the center of the school courtyard where the social connection lies, is the main performance outdoor space where students can gather next to the library -the main source of knowledge which is open for everyone-.

Another courtyard by the dormitories offers a sports stimulation area where

students gather after school. Making students and teachers part of the large community where everybody will share knowledge of farming skills, animal husbandry or cooking within school boundaries, converting current students into the sustainable future with abilities to manage and use the land.

The shapes of the building are carefully analyzed and selected based on how to optimize and utilized shapes found in nature to discover the optimal shape for each specific function and make sure to conserve each existing tree. By choosing a rectangle we utilize the shared wall between houses and dorms to reduce material usage, for the school, the hexagon gives our concept a way to make the form dynamic and playful whilst still providing sufficient daylight, the shapes give us the maximum floor area with minimum wall area, but still with the best possible format for class layouts.

Teacher housing is simulated as a village scale, sharing a livable street where each family has the opportunity for social interaction within the neighborhood.

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Ted Trussell Porter, Gong Chen New York, United States of America Representing the societal support children need in their formative years, the design of Embracing Community brings individual components together to create a stronger whole. The radial layout of the master plan components create larger and smaller scale indoor and outdoor spaces and with a minimum of three combined modules provides structural stability.

The modular design of the complex allows for growth, with a focus on materials and building techniques that are readily available and can be built with a local workforce: Corrugated Metal: corrugated metal roofing provides effective weather shield from both rain and sun. It also allows for controlled rainwater collection, making it worth the expense of purchasing this material.

Wood Trusses: The roof wood support structure follows a modular kit system, identical in all buildings. The modules are sized to withstand wind and rain forces, support the load of the PV system, and create the roof pitch. The lumber can be from local or outside sources as necessary.

Thatch: Locally sourced reed mats, woven by local workers, serve as a heat and sound buffer under the roof. Set into the web of the truss structure, these

create a pitched ceiling to absorb sound and provide airflow for heat to escape, as well as introducing an elegant decorative element in the construction. Thatch is also used to cover the framed wall components at each end of the building modules.

Rammed Earth: Using earth from the site mixed with a small amount of cement and plant fiber for reinforcing, the rammed earth walls can be built by local craftspeople. The ample roof overhang is designed to protect the rammed earth walls from rain, but the exterior facing walls can also be coated with a decorative plaster for added protection from potential weather damage. The rammed earth walls also have a thermal buffer effect to help diminish temperature peaks. The formwork for the walls can be reused for all construction phases.

Cobbles: Fieldstones or simple burned clay bricks provide solid footing, particularly during rain season. The cobbled surface channels water away from the buildings and walkways to rain ditches. Controlled runoff helps irrigate vegetation while providing dry and stable walking surfaces.

Concrete blocks: solid concrete block foundations provide secure and water resistant bases for rammed earth walls, if block-making equipment is available.

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Armando Hashimoto Mexico City, Mexico The proposal combines simplicity of construction, use of available materials, adaptation to site conditions, ideal orientation, functional layout, renewable energy intake and rainwater harvesting to facilitate daily activities, all in a community building relationship between closed and open spaces.

The program is divided into three main groups of buildings with different degrees of independence and interaction as pertinent, depending on the activities that take place in and around them.

The permeable fence allows people to see the interior activities, the main entrace receives people into the main and central plaza, where people can gather and perform community activites and also divides the school from the living area.

The teachers´compound has a private atmosphere for family life.

The main advantages of the project are as follow: 1. Roofs of all buildings make a rainwater harvesting system, given its very significant potential of reuse in everyday activities and its educational contribution 2. All trees are kept 3. Classrooms with ideal east-­ west orientation with windows facing north

and south for best lighting conditions and prevent driving wind and rain entering from the east. Low morning and evening sun is avoided 4. Covered common area betwen classooms for confortable use through out the day 5. Use of ceiling plane with ventilation space above to difuse heat from metal sheet roofing 6. Cross ventilation in all spaces enhanced by louvers in windows 7. Water storage tanks in high location on site 8. Future expansion can be built mostly as an independent operation 9. Planting location close to classrooms for heat reduction 10. School office located on vantage point 11. Open spaces strategically located and dimensioned according to function to facilitate social interaction and supervision 12. Use of timber for structural trusses instead of metal to reduce cost.

13. Facing porticoes to activate common space in teachers´ housing area 14. Dining room and multipurpose spaces located next to each other and facing main courtyard for added flexibility and expanded posibilities of use, even at community center scale

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BIHE Architectural Department New Jersey, United States of America The design is a complex and total word.

Not just for architecture, graphic or visual arts, but we as human are able to use it for our life. We can design our future, we can choose parameters of our life one by one and design them or with the power of choosing and mixing things we can improve the quality of our environment.

Thinking of design and trying to achieve its goals enables our mind to think about alternatives. Making alternatives is crucial in the process of making a change and this is where creativity shows up.

We believe sustainable development needs creativity as well as knowledge, economics, and culture and this creativity is not an external phenomenon, it needs to grow up inside the society that wants to be developed. Native People knows their context, their culture, their economic situation and challenge every day with their political and social issues. With this collection of knowledge, they have a strong ability to analyze their needs and think for answers. This potential just needs a spark or Initial leap to start generating alternatives for development.

We tried to create a context for a design that includes two parameters; choice and change. Its obvious for an architectural develop completely and present as

a complete structure, so we decided, choose and change it. We also tried to include these parameters in the whole project.

In housing spaces, there is four kinds of compositions of putting two rectangles together. The rectangles are separated by public and private spaces of a house. The variation of created spaces removes the monotony from the whole housing area, so every family is able to choose their lifestyle and design their environment.

This variation also shows up dorms. We created three kinds of rooms; four, five and six people each room. The variation of layout, bed styles and height in dorms makes different experiences of the vicinity and sharing for children.

In the school area, there are private and small yards between every three class causing the different relationship between every group of classes. These yards are able to convert the outdoor or shared classes sometimes and every grade can design their own yard or use it as they need.

We tried to create a complex of spaces that make different experiences when we pass through them and gives us many corners to design variation of events. A try to design a spark for Benga children.

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Swati Vaidya, Manali Deshmukh, Shraddha Dupatane, Prachitee Agarkar Pune, India EDUCATION: Education plays a vital role as a policy instrument, capable of instilling social change and economic advancement in developing countries by giving communities the opportunity to take control of their destinies. – says Anesu Chimambo.

Education reduces poverty increases a person’s chances of having a healthy life, reduces maternal deaths, and combats diseases. In sum, education is not only about imparting knowledge but instead is one of the most important investments for underdeveloped countries.

PROPOSAL: Aligning to the competition brief - the aim is to make the young citizens of Benga - Malavi -a Sub- Saharan country experience various facets of life by giving them a decent school infrastructure and encouraging students to continue secondary level education. The design intent focuses on the liberal philosophy of education- knowledge of human culture, intellectual and practical skills and sensitivity to social responsibility. It aims to provide a safe learning experience through spaces addressing agriculture and livestock activities, communicates hygiene education and awareness to the problems of deforestations.

DESIGN INTERFACE: All over Africa there is an overwhelming sense of design and an underlying structure of consistent and recurring pattern. Geometric shapes of diamonds

and triangles are seen most commonly used in a multitude of ways- painted, incised, scraped, embossed, printed, and even embroidered and arranged repeatedly in vertical or horizontal rows, and scaled up or down displaying a magnificent dramatic effect. The abstraction of this geometry in the design articulates spatial quality and details that adds more to the conventional classrooms and encourages activity based learning. The arrangement of built blocks also makes the building accessible giving a feeling of safety and security.

TECHNOLOGY INTERFACE: The proposed modular system of construction allows flexibility for future development and ease of execution through unskilled labour. Use of compressed earth blocks (CEB) for superstructure and straw reinforced clay internal partitions improves the economic efficiency. Wood has been considered advantageous for roofing and minimalistic fenestrations like jalis and louvers addresses the subtropical climate and enhances the thermal comfort of indoor spaces.

Adapting to the use of renewable energy systems like the rain water harvesting, waste water disposal systems and solar panels inculcates being responsible towards sustainability and in global terms a solution that affects the educational system in the third world.

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José Rafael Ramírez, Neftali Laboy Velázquez San Juan, Puerto Rico The purpose of this design is to create a direct relationship with the church and primary school located on the other side of the assigned land and, at the same time, separate the residences from the school area. For this reason, the project is organized through axialities, creating a sense of community and belonging through the spaces.

The library, the multipurpose room and the administrative offices are the three main buildings and are in front of a public square. In the back there are the four rooms that are organized in parallel leaving space for any future expansion

and creating a direct access to the area of animals and planting as a field of study.

On the left side are the dormitories of the students to maintain the proximity to the church and the animal area, while the twelve houses of the teachers are at the other end to provide a space of privacy for their families, in a cozy atmosphere and a lot of vegetation.

The concept of this project is to welcome the Malawians who dream of a better future through large gaps and geometric spaces in an urbanist language.

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Daphne Gurri, Ebehi Ijewere, Daryl Fernandez, Angel Tamayo Miami, United States of America Inspired by the richness of Malawi’s land, people, and way of life, the design concept seeks to preserve their culture while enriching & improving their living conditions through the design of the site and buildings.

The concept is based on four themes1. Creating an organic connectivity throughout the site inspired by the veins found in a leaf, 2. Creating interlocking clusters of spaces, 3. Form making of the buildings that are abstracted from geometric, repetitive African textile patterns, 4. Integrating passive design strategies in the site and building design that dignifies human life and promotes self-improvement.

All existing trees on the site were preserved and became an integral part of the circulation through the site.

By connecting the existing trees with a physical and visual connection, we created a primary path through the site that led to the development of distinct clusters of spaces and areas. A water well and trash pit is also located adjacent to the street thereby allowing access by the community.

Improving upon existing housing typology found in Malawi, each house is designed with roof-mounted solar panels and a water collection system that can be used to sustain each family’s vegetable garden.

The Classrooms are grouped in two and are connected by a covered canopy that protects the children and teachers from inclement weather. The Library, Science and Computer Lab buildings support the learning activities and are designed with simple forms with integrated seating areas into the perimeter walls.

The Dormitories have the shape of a simple “bar building” and maximizes the number of children to be housed using bunk beds. Boys and girls are separated, yet share a common open space for dining in the central courtyard space.

The zig-zag shape of the Administration building comes from a typical geometric African textile pattern, which is placed strategically to have direct view to the gated entrance, and serves as the welcoming face to visitors.

The shape of the Multi-purpose building is derived from the “negative space” created by the “veins”, and was designed as flexible as possible to allow for performances, exhibitions, or community meetings.

Male & Female Dry latrines and wash basins are strategically located within each individual “cluster” area.

The design uses local materials such as clay brick, open brick and ventilation blocks, wood louvers, corrugated metal roofs, thatched, woven material for the screens, steel trusses, and bamboo limited to the multipurpose building.

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Warren Techentin Architecture [WTARCH] Los Angeles, United States of America School is a time for inspiration, often symbolized by a tree. It is a place where we establish the roots of basic life principles and develop them into more complex ideas and knowledge of the world. School is where dreams are given shape and nurtured. For many of us, it is also our first interaction with institutions; a supportive school experience helps students establish positive feelings about community and government.

Our design for the Benga Parish School creates a promising, fun, and contextually relevant environment for learning, and a place that forges compelling memories.

The school is organized around a courtyard, which is separated from the road by a long string of buildings. These conceptual ‘noodle-like’ buildings with tall ventilated roofs contain all of the group programs and dormitories. To the west of the courtyard lie the classrooms and to the east, the teachers’ houses.

In a nod towards the dream-like – or perhaps as if out of a fairy tale – our scheme ‘re-forests’ the property with different trees, both real and Architectural.

The real trees provide shade, fruit, and places to gather. The shorter Architectural trees are used as a roof structure for the classrooms while the tall Architectural trees introduce a scale evocative of playfulness and fantasy.

All buildings are simple aggregations of common materials and building practices found in Malawi. We are inspired by local textiles, furniture, buildings, and other crafts, and seek to incorporate many of these strategies into the proposed scheme. The classrooms integrate a bamboo weaving similar to the world-renowned Malawi chair for better ventilation while the porches on the teachers’ units are painted in bright patterns from Malawian fabrics.

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Oleg Favelyukis, Andrew Valchuk, Oleksandra Burovitska, Viktoria Lavrova Odessa, Ukraine The school grounds are divided into three parts - academic, administrative and residential.

Classrooms are freely located in the academic part. One building - one class.

The open brick laying on each building is individual. This makes it easier to navigate through the school grounds. Buildingclasses are united by a covered street.

It creates comfort and protection from the sun. Separately, there is a cylindrical common space for work and leisure.

In the residential part there are small buildings with 3 living rooms and one dining room. Buildings are free standing on site. Between them there are several places for joint recreation.

The administrative part is located between the academic and residential

parts. In this part are located the teachers’ room, library, laboratory, computer class, directors office, conference room and storage room. The administrative part consists of separate buildings. Yet, this whole part is covered and united by a common roof. The roof serves to protect from the sun and collect rainwater. Also, solar panels are located on this roof.

We use local materials for the construction of buildings (brick, wood, hay roofing). The exception is the roofs of classrooms. They are made of metal and serve to collect rainwater. The windows are covered with wooden shutters. The shutters open, turning around the central axis. The glass in the windows is not used. Open brickwork helps to ventilate the room and get more light. At the same time, we reduce the number of window openings.

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Mini Coker, Priscilla Mensah, Tonderai Maboreke London, United Kingdom To design a school that is safe, sustainable and conscious of the past, present and future of Malawi.

Past, Present and Future The design of the buildings on the site are a modern approach to the vernacular style. We wanted to respect the history, whilst showing ideas for progression through new methods of construction.

The paths that navigate through the site undulate like waves in a similar way to waters of the famous Lake Malawi. They surround the central gathering space- a vibrant place for song, dance to suit the Malawi culture.

Safety Throughout the design we were able to create a safe environment for the students by implementing a series of courtyards and creating a barrier between the main road and main school. These are areas for people to relax, feel safe and socialize in open spaces. The recent Cyclone Idai and various other incidents of flooding lead us to construct all the buildings on concrete platforms of at least 500mm.

This not only enables structural safety, but also prevents the spread of water

born diseases.

Sustainability Throughout the entire master plan, we made a conscious decision to avoid using timber where possible in response to Malawi’s deforestation crisis. Using compressed-earth bricks as a substitute for burnt bricks, wood is no longer required to be burnt in fire to form the bricks. We wanted to teach the people about alternative methods whilst aiding in the redevelopment of forests.

In order to educate students and staff about sustainability we focused our design around permaculture. Traditional toilets were replaced with Eco San toilets.

Here the waste can be collected over 9month cycle and used as compost to harvest crops. Whilst creating a closed loop system for small scale intensive farming, the toilets being designed above ground also prevents the spread of water born diseases such as cholera.

The school provides children with skills and knowledge for daily life, whilst aiding in developing a prosperous future for Malawi and its people.

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Daekwon Park, Yağmur Yenice New York, United States of America Fig trees have a special meaning in Malawi’s culture. The pleasant shade underneath a fully-grown fig tree has been used as an ideal place for social, cultural, and educational gatherings throughout the history of Malawi. Inspired by this tradition, we wanted to create a school that embodies the experiential and symbolic significance of a mature fig tree sitting on a vast terrain.

The organization of the buildings follows the logic of branching, with the school programs serving as the primary trunk and the residential programs branchingoff from it. When there is need for future expansions, additional branches can “grow out” from these branches.

The buildings are designed around the existing vegetations, creating carefully planned outdoor spaces including entry plazas, courtyard, agricultural land, and tree nurseries. We have also allocated land for new trees towards the perimeter of the site in the hope that they will spread far and wide beyond the North-West of the site. The orientation of the roofs

and openings between the individual buildings allow optimum daylighting and cross ventilation. The animal area and the dry latrines are located towards the leeward-side (downwind) to avoid odor or pathogens from entering the buildings.

The overall configuration of the building consists of simple clay brick buildings arranged beneath a continuous thatched timber roof structure. The gaps between the individual buildings allow optimum cross ventilation around and across the buildings and form covered outdoor spaces and walkways. The roof structure is designed to allow ample winter sun in while providing shade from the harsh summer sun. Solar panels can be installed on the north facing roofs and water tanks can be located on top of the buildings (space between the ceiling and the roof).

The simple geometry of the buildings, coupled with choosing the traditional materials and construction techniques, will allow local communities to come together and realize the proposal.

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thank you for your interest! you can see more proposals in our web page

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