Background

How to design a school in Ethiopia

Well, we started with the following brief:
3 classroom school in Shakiso, Southern Ethiopia, to be a landmark, a beacon, somewhere where the community wish to go and meet. To be developed further in the future. To be as sustainable as possible, probably using concrete blocks and corrugated iron roofing.

We received a list of requirements [3 classrooms, library, learning centre, workshop, café, staff room, security guard room, cleaner’s room and several offices] a very rough site plan and some pictures. Unfortunately the site plan wasn’t exactly up to Ordnance Survey standards, but more like a copy from a copy from a… and the pictures of the site were taken from different angles, but lacked information about their location. But we had something to start with: doing a lot of research to find out what we would be working on in the next months.

First meeting

At our first meeting we discussed the lack of information and decided that before doing any designing, we should spend time on getting much more information.
This led to maps from Google Earth, a more specified brief with attention to the way of building, the kind of materials we can use and some reference images from other schools build in Africa. We discussed the use of solar panels, the difficulties with tin roofs (too hot and too noisy) and the possibilities of concrete blocks and corrugated iron.
And we ended the evening by dividing all the research we will have to do. It seems like research will be the keyword for the next weeks.

Ethiopia on Google Earth

Shakiso on Google Earth