Our Goal

We want to help create an environment which serves the school community, providing a learning experience which is as enjoyable, fruitful, and uplifting as possible.

The typical school building in northern Burkina Faso is made of cement block, with a tin roof. It provides a place to learn, but can get very stifling and uncomfortable in hot season. We are looking into models that would help put architecture at the service of the community.

The school building should be:

• Academically stimulating : encouraging student engagement

• Physically comfortable : reducing climatic impact

• Socially empowering : creating community-building space

• Aesthetically pleasing : displaying beauty

• Environmentally friendly : made with appropriate materials

Design

The final design of the school has drawn on a spectrum of talents as we seek to create a good learning environment that is both practical and environmentally and aesthetically stimulating. The school has benefitted from architectural input from the UK, innovative “woodless construction” by DWF in France, and on-the-ground realism from the church in Burkina Faso.

The design includes:

• Six solid cement classrooms built around a courtyard, with terraces, designed and orientated to reduce the impact of the sahelian heat and wind.
• Outside shaded study areas and meeting places,
• A courtyard with garden
• Housing for 6 teachers, using local materials and skill and innovative design techniques to make attractive buildings with vaulted roofs from mud brick.
• A kitchen and toilets for the children
• Play areas and soccer field
• Possibilities for water harvesting (see below), solar water heating and electricity generation, composting toilets

Programme and Progress

Phase 1
Building started on the school in April 2010. The first three classrooms and two teachers' houses should be finished by September 2010, in time for the new school year in October. There will of course also be the first block of toilets by then.

A third teacher's house, a school kitchen, and an outside classroom/meeting area are expected to be added in 2010-2011.

Phase 2
Three more classrooms, an office, more toilets, a store-room, and a permanent water supply should be added once funds are available.

The problem with water: Although we drilled for water on the school land, we didn't find any, and so now are looking at rain water harvesting. We hope to set up a system of collecting water during the rainy season (eg from the school roofs) and collect it in an underground cistern. This could then be pumped up to a small water tower for filtering and feeding to a standpipe.

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