Rural school in Malawi

FAST VUT - Faculty of Civil Engineering, Brno University of Technology, Department of Architecture

Project idea

The project represents a design for a secondary school located in the village of Nkwazi on Likoma Island in Malawi. The main emphasis is on sustainability and environmental friendliness. The school is intended to serve for the education of youth in the region and provide space for community activities.

Project description

Urban Design
The school is located in the village of Nkwazi on Likoma Island in Malawi. The plot on which the building is situated lies near the center of the village on a gentle slope and has not been used until now. The entire island is connected only by unpaved dirt roads. The school building is located in the front part of the plot near the main road that passes through the village. The rear part of the plot is reserved for a football field, which is complemented by a covered grandstand. Since the island is exclusively accessible by foot, no parking spaces are included in the complex. During construction, some trees will be removed, but they will be replaced with new plantings. These new trees will be planted near the existing greenery in the surrounding area and on the southern side of the plot. This step will help to reduce the amount of dust that spreads from the adjacent road.

Architectural Design
The shape of the building originated from the distortion of a circle on a slope, which creates an ellipse from a human perspective. This elliptical perimeter wall creates a boundary for the school's protected space, ensuring security. The school rooms are arranged around the perimeter of the ellipse and are formed in plan view from circles with diameters of 5, 8, 13, and 21 meters – inspired by the Fibonacci sequence. The school has no windows in the perimeter wall; all openings face into the school courtyard. The school's roof respects the circles in the plan view, and its overhanging edges are curved towards the ground to create protected shaded corridors along both the inner and outer perimeter of the school. The undulating shape of the roof is inspired by the rugged landscape of the island and helps the building blend better into its surroundings. In the courtyard area, there are two pergolas around two trees. One serves as a community garden, and the other as an outdoor seating area. The pergolas are equipped with retractable colored canvases on the sides to provide shade. The courtyard also features a small amphitheater designed for dance performances, as dance is very significant to the local people. Outside the school building, there are public changing rooms intended for visitors to the football field. Football is the national sport in Malawi, and everyone there plays it. The changing rooms are connected to the school building by a roof. The school and public changing room spaces are elevated 0.5 meters above the terrain to prevent flooding during the rainy season. This height difference is overcome around the perimeter of the courtyard by means of three steps or a ramp. Steps and a ramp are also located at the public changing rooms and at the supply entrance.

Disposition
The school includes 4 basic classrooms for 35 students each and two specialized classrooms. There is also an outdoor covered classroom available. Sanitary facilities are grouped in one place to ensure simplicity in sewage management and are located on the opposite side of the school from the dining hall to prevent the spread of unpleasant odors. Adjacent to the dining hall is a kitchen with associated storage and staff facilities. The storage areas have an outside entrance for deliveries. The kitchen also provides access to the technical room and the well room. At the main entrance, there is a gatehouse with a teacher's office, a medical room, and school administration. The main entrance to the school is closed by a gate and monitored by a window from the gatehouse. Public changing rooms are located outside the school building on its northern side. Access to the public changing rooms with showers and toilets from the school is provided by a lockable side entrance. This entrance is also used for access to the football field from the school. Outdoor covered areas around the outer perimeter of the school are paved with clay brick tiles.

Technical information

Structural and Material Solution
The school is a rammed earth wall construction system. Load-bearing walls are 500 mm thick, and partition walls are 300 mm thick. The walls are placed on reinforced concrete strips and a reinforced concrete slab, which also forms the school floor. The roof is made of beaten aluminum placed on a bamboo substructure of flexible squares. The substructure is supported by earthen walls and wooden columns in areas where there is a large overhang or span from the load-bearing walls. At the peaks of the roof waves, there are raised plexiglass skylights providing light to the interior. Door fillings are designed using wooden frames woven with reeds. The entrances to the classrooms and dining hall are designed using a series of pivot portals on a steel axis. The portals are also designed as wooden frames with reed weaving. In the upper part of the load-bearing wall, round ventilation holes are placed around the perimeter, their placement mirroring the shape of the roof. The rooms feature a reed ceiling.

Ecological Aspects of the Design
The space under the roof is separated from the rooms by a reed ceiling and is ventilated by ventilation holes that draw in fresh air. Warm air is vented at the peak of the roof curve through a raised skylight. The massive rammed earth construction provides a large thermal capacity of the walls, which contributes to maintaining a balanced climate in the building. Rainwater is collected from the schoolyard through a channel at the bottom of the amphitheater into a water tank, from which it can be pumped using a well in the middle of the courtyard. The school building is connected to the local water supply and power grid, but to reduce the burden on the surrounding area, a well is dug in the building, and photovoltaic panels are placed on the grandstand by the football field, generating electrical energy stored in batteries in the technical room. Under the school's sanitary facilities, there is a septic tank that needs to be regularly emptied.

Basic Dimensions
Plot area: 6565 m2
Built-up area: 3320 m2
Total usable area: 3110 m2
Enclosed volume: 14000 m3