Brittaney Ray's Project

Project idea

My overall idea for this Zambia school design was to create a design that met the
needs and construction skills of the village while also creating a sense of community
within the campus. My series of radial building groups were influenced by the Adinkra
symbols for Wisdom and Greatness. I was working to incorporate the symbol for
greatness, which is a series of three concentric circles, into the assembly area. This
influenced the amphitheater style gathering area. I also wanted to incorporate wisdom
into the classroom areas. This symbol is a series of repeated shapes connected with an
open central circle. I created a similar layout with the classroom buildings and the
central courtyard space. I wanted each large area to be a gathering place that invites
the students in and protects them on the inside.

Project description

Some ideas that make the design interesting are the aspects that encourage
water collection, gardening and green roof concepts. As stated before, the roofs of the
dorms and classrooms are reflective white or vegetative. Also, between each dorm
building are container and vertical gardens to be tended to by the students living in
those dorms. There are rain barrels to collect rainwater for watering those gardens. In
addition to natural trees, there would be man-made tree sculptures that allow more of
the national flower, the Bougainvillea, to grow up from the base and rest at the top.
While adding color, shade, and beauty to the campus these tree sculptures would also
be water collectors that funnel rainwater down into buried tanks to be used for
gardening, sanitation, and if treated, for showering or hand-washing

Technical information

The majority of the buildings would be constructed using masonry bricks. All
roofs are sloped with a shed roof design allowing light to enter and heat to escape.
Each dorm building has a series of three pull up, garage style doors that open toward
the center that could also be fastened with mosquito netting when the doors are
opened. In addition, the dorm roofs have a green roof system to help cool them and the
classroom and office roofs have white, heat-reflective roofs. All buildings are single
story. The dining hall and kitchen have a double sided shed roof which make it appear
a bit taller than the other buildings. Lastly, surrounding both the classroom groups and
the assembly area there is a shade trellis that would be beautiful if the top circles could
be made from copper with magenta Bougainvillea vines growing up the post to provide
even more shade and color.