072 Primary School.PRIMARY SCHOOL LOCATION GANDO, BURKINA FASO Burkina Faso (burkē`nə fä`sō), republic (2005 est. pop. 13,925,000), 105,869 sq mi (274,200 sq km), W Africa. It borders on Mali in the west and north, on Niger in the northeast, on Benin in the southeast, and on Togo, Ghana, and ARCHITECT DIEBEDO FRANCIS KERE KERE Kuroshio Extension Region Experiment WRITER CATHERINE SLESSOR 'Help to self-help' is the ideology of Diebedo Francis Kere, a young architect from Burkina Faso who is attempting to improve the lot of his West African West Africa A region of western Africa between the Sahara Desert and the Gulf of Guinea. It was largely controlled by colonial powers until the 20th century. West African adj. & n. countrymen. Kere was the first person from his village of Gando to go to university, studying architecture in Berlin, where his practice is based. Here, he conceived the idea of building a new village school to replace the decaying existing one, which had fallen into disuse dis·use n. The state of not being used or of being no longer in use. disuse Noun the state of being neglected or no longer used; neglect Noun 1. , exacerbating a cycle of social decline. Completed in 2001, the new school accommodated 120 pupils. Its empowering social remit and resourceful use of local materials to create dignified and appropriate architecture on a small budget (about [pounds sterling]18,500) won it an Aga Khan Award Aga Khan Award may refer to:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To raise funds to build the school, Kere set up a development company that now implements education and healthcare projects across Burkina Faso. The aim is to provide sustainable models of development that engage with communities and harness local skills. The first Gando school was such a success that it became oversubscribed Refers to connecting more users to a system than can be fully supported if all of them were using it at the same time. Networks and servers are almost always designed with some amount of oversubscription, counting on the fact that everybody does not need the service simultaneously. , so Kere constructed a second building, which opened at the start of this year. Like its predecessor, this latest school is a long single-storey volume topped by a lightweight roof made from corrugated cor·ru·gate v. cor·ru·gat·ed, cor·ru·gat·ing, cor·ru·gates v.tr. To shape into folds or parallel and alternating ridges and grooves. v.intr. steel metal sheeting. Supported by a space frame structure, the oversailing canopy creates a generous zone of shade around the building. Four identically sized classrooms are housed within the volume, together with a covered but unwalled space containing a large sandpit for play and teaching. The hope is that this classroom core will eventually be extended to encompass a small library and reading room, completing the school campus. Materials and construction are necessarily low tech. Walls are constructed from traditional earth blocks, using local raw materials and basic tools. Floors are beaten earth. Classrooms have shallow, vaulted blockwork ceilings which are perforated for natural ventilation Natural ventilation is the process of supplying and removing air through an indoor space by natural means. There are two types of natural ventilation occurring in buildings: wind driven ventilation and stack ventilation. . Curved concrete ribs span between a continuous concrete ring beam to provide support for the steel roof structure. Made from reinforcement bars bent and welded together on site, the lightweight frame was erected manually in sections without the use of mechanical equipment. Colourful steel window shutters made by local metalsmiths fold up to let in light and air. Timber is used only for furniture, because hardwood is both difficult to source and vulnerable to termites. Without electricity, environmental control relies on traditional, passive techniques. The heavy walls provide thermal mass Thermal mass, in the most general sense, is any mass that absorbs and holds heat. In the architectural sense, it is any mass that absorbs and stores heat during sunny periods when the heat is not desirable in the living space of a building, and then releases the heat during , reducing temperature fluctuations. Cooling breezes circulate through the shutters and hot air is drawn up through the vaulted ceiling and dissipated into the roof space through the stack effect Stack effect is the movement of air into and out of buildings, chimneys, flue gas stacks, or other containers, and is driven by buoyancy. Buoyancy occurs due to a difference in indoor-to-outdoor air density resulting from temperature and moisture differences. . [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Construction was carried out using local labour. 'This was new for the region,' says Kere, 'and initiated a turning point in the perception of the community. Never before has a school project raised such high expectations. Even the government was surprised by the overwhelming interest of the people and is now considering ways of supporting the schools in the long term.' |
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