Urban Classroom Upgrade (India)

Partner | Rumi Schools of Excellence, Orient Global’s chain of low-cost private schools

Orient Global is a Singapore-based private investment group founded by New Zealand-born entrepreneur Richard F. Chandler. In 2007, Orient Global announced a USD 100 million commitment to education, with a mission to combat global illiteracy by enhancing the quality and availability of education for low income communities in developing countries.

Rumi Schools of Excellence is Orient Global's chain of low-cost private schools in India, which aims to extend access and improve educational quality through affordable private schooling. Students in Rumi Schools of Excellence pay fees of just USD 3-7 per month. In India, there are hundreds of thousands of existing low-cost private schools spread across the country, serving low-income communities by providing an education at an affordable cost. Rumi Schools of Excellence represents the first large-scale private investment in improving the education delivered by this informal sector. There are plans to add hundreds of schools to the Rumi Schools of Excellence network in the coming years.

Rumi Schools of Excellence are situated in high-density urban areas in low-income communities. Growing enrollment demand has led to the need to turn existing buildings into schools, adding classrooms and other necessary infrastructure. Due to budget limitations, space constraints and unsafe building practices the vast majority of these classrooms suffer from poor ventilation, limited lighting, with little or no temperature regulation. This also leads to overcrowding and uncomfortable seating and working arrangements for students and teachers respectively. The poor quality of these learning environments results in reduced student attentiveness, a loss of creativity in learning and a higher rate of teacher absenteeism.

The challenge is to develop innovative design solutions to upgrade and expand existing Rumi Schools of Excellence classroom environments in high-density urban settings in India

Partner | Rumi Schools of Excellence, Orient Global’s chain of low-cost private schools

Translations available at the bottom of the page.

Challenge

To develop innovative design solutions to upgrade and expand existing classroom environments in high-density urban settings in India.

Partner

Rumi Schools of Excellence, Orient Global’s chain of low-cost private schools

Partner Description

Rumi Schools of Excellence, Orient Global’s chain of low-cost private schools, is the first chain of truly affordable private schools in India. Rumi Schools of Excellence aims at improving educational quality by providing assistance with management, curriculum, teacher training, and upgrading of the existing school facilities. These schools provide an education to low-income communities at an affordable cost.

Partner Websites

www.orientglobal.com
www.rumischools.com

Location

High-density urban areas in low-income communities throughout India

Need

Rumi Schools of Excellence are situated in high-density urban areas in low-income communities across India and are faced with growing demand for enrollment. This scenario has led to the need to turn existing buildings into schools, adding classrooms and other necessary infrastructure. Due to budget limitations, space constraints and unsafe building practices the vast majority of these classrooms suffer from poor ventilation, limited lighting, with little or no temperature regulation. This also leads to overcrowding and uncomfortable seating and working arrangements for students and teachers respectively. The poor quality of these learning environments results in reduced student attentiveness, a loss of creativity in learning and a higher rate of teacher absenteeism.

The challenge requires innovative and efficient design solutions to upgrade the tens of millions of existing classrooms in Rumi Schools across India, creating inspiring learning environments that foster creativity and improve the pace of learning of students and the quality of life and productivity of teachers and staff. The successful design solution will use easily available local materials and simple construction techniques but most importantly it will be cost-effective and affordable for Rumi School owners. Infrastructure budgets are driven entirely by the fees paid by students, which must be affordable to the low-income families the schools serve.

Program

The design of the upgrade will focus on creating inspiring learning and teaching environments at an existing Rumi School in an urban area where space is a major constraint. There are a number of elements to this challenge:

1. designing an upgrade for the existing classrooms while accommodating additional classroom capacity,
2. introducing a computer laboratory into the school environment,
3. improving ancillary services (including water and electrical) that support all classrooms,
4. the design of a "storefront" for the school that offers passersby visual access into the learning opportunities offered within, and
5. incorporate design elements that enable teachers to use the building itself as a learning aid and other strategies to make creative use of space to inspire learning.

The winning design will be a holistic solution that encompasses these elements to deliver an inspiring environment on a very limited budget.

In responding to this challenge, designers should think about how their approach to designing learning environments will address existing structural and space constraints of a typical Rumi School.

The design approach must be easily adapted and replicated within the school itself as well as in upgrading Rumi Schools in similar structures throughout India. This may involve thinking about the classroom as a system that can be replicated or singling out elements that can be repeated.

If you base your design on sample documentation provided for one school be sure to show how will your design be applicable to the other two schools.

Designers are not asked to address the entire school or administrative spaces within the school, but should think about how learning can be incorporated into common areas and other aspects of the structure as a whole.

Design Considerations

Designers are asked to take the information below into consideration as they develop their classroom design.

Storefront for Education

• The school structure is usually the largest building in the neighborhood, a landmark building. The people of the neighborhood regard these schools as important buildings. Any school upgrades should reflect and enhance the school's status in the neighborhood.
• Entrants are encouraged to think about how to design the entrance and façade of the school to encourage enrollment, (increased enrollment provides the funding for infrastructure upgrades.) This can include incorporating sight lines into a classroom or the computer lab (a major draw for many parents). The challenge here will be designing a storefront for the school reflecting the educational opportunities available within by offering passersby a view of active learning taking place within the space or other demonstrations of student advancement.
• The design solution for the upgrade will focus on better image building ideas for the schools that offer welcoming and creative exterior and common areas encouraging community participation and increasing student enrollment.

Spatial Planning

• Rumi School owners make incremental investments in expansion as student numbers increase. The upgrade, while being creative and simple, should allow the school to continue to expand as enrollments increase overtime.
• The layout of the upgrade will maximize space utilization, as the existing student-teacher ratio is very high (upwards of 40 students to 1 teacher) and budgets are limited.
• The spatial planning will encourage flexible seating arrangement accommodating different teaching styles, including group exercises and peer-to-peer learning.
• Designers are encouraged to consider innovative ideas for flexible and cost effective partitions. The use of new and green materials is highly recommended.
• Effective spatial planning may include the design of classroom furniture and storage. This may be part of the whole classroom system design. The design of furniture and storage must be cost effective and easy for mass production. (See "Teaching Aids and Storage" below.)
• Consider how classrooms can be used for different purposes at different times to allow school administrators to maximize the use of the classroom throughout a typical day.
• Current furniture layout precludes convenient cleaning and maintenance. Consider ease of maintenance in classroom layouts.

Technology

• Designers should consider technicalities involved in incorporating computers into the learning environment. Show how your classroom system could be adapted to allow a classroom to also serve as a computer lab as well as a traditional classroom.
• Seating arrangements should accommodate up to three students working on one computer at a time. This will be achieved in the form of multiple seating arrangement options. (Consider approx. 40 students in each class)
• Ventilation should be incorporated to optimize thermal conditions for computer operation.
• Server storage should be included. Recognizing space constraints servers and other equipment can be stored in the classroom (wall mounted, for example) rather than included in a separate room or closet. Storage must allow for constant airflow for cooling. Equipment must be well-secured and easy to access for maintenance.
• Security of computer equipment should be addressed in the design. (For example, window and door security.) Show how the standard classroom would be adapted to include additional security measures.
• The new upgrade solutions must be cost effective and compete with the existing cost estimates for computer lab upgrades. See sample BOQ below.

Teaching Aids and Storage

• Consider how various architectural elements such as doors, windows, walls, ceilings, and corridors can be used as learning aids to enhance the learning experience for students and teachers.
• Storage is a critical need. Classroom teaching aids (science equipment, books, etc.) are often shared among classrooms. Explore how teaching aids can be stored and shared between classrooms.
• Consider display options and mounting solutions. How can teaching aids as well as student work be mounted and displayed within the classroom?
• Consider storage of student books and bags

Materials and Construction

• The design solution must incorporate locally available materials and simple construction techniques that address prevailing climatic conditions as well as seismic risks.
• The classroom systems should involve new and innovative construction techniques in response to the current traditional construction techniques to minimize costs.
• Design teams are encouraged to explore the use of new and environmentally sustainable materials that may be easily procured locally and can be sourced within the cost constraints below.

Natural lighting, Ventilation and Acoustics

• The current Rumi School building typology is heavyweight construction (predominant use of reinforced concrete and asbestos roofing). This typology is often ill suited for the local climate conditions in India. The mass of the building retains heat (thermal mass) making schools hot and uncomfortable in summers. Designers must take into account local temperature ranges and provide for non-mechanical temperature regulation of the classroom environment.
• Current building practices in these schools do not consider lighting and natural or mechanical ventilation thus making for ill lit and uncomfortable learning environment.
• In response to these conditions the designs should include innovative ideas for natural lighting and ventilation. Cost effective and low maintenance methods of mechanical or artificial solutions may be considered. (See lighting level and ventilation requirements in Design Requirements below.)
• The innovation of traditional methods of lighting and ventilation is encouraged.
• Rumi Schools are located in densely populated urban commercial zones. Designers are encouraged to address acoustical issues through innovative use of materials (baffling, partitions, etc.) and techniques in order to reduce noise levels between classrooms and allow more flexible use of classroom spaces. Both outside noise pollution as well as interference from other classes in session should be taken into consideration. (See Acoustic level requirements in Design Requirements below.)

Building Services

• The design will also respond to the existing structure of the building, in terms of point loads and existing structural conditions.
• The classroom design should explore ways of improving existing building electrical layouts, including concealing exposed wiring while allowing for easy maintenance.
• Most Rumi Schools lack clean drinking water for students. Consider how to enable students to access drinking water facilities offering at least 0.3-0.5 liters of clean drinking water per student per day as part of the overall classroom system.
• Maintenance and facility operating costs is a significant portion of school expenses. The design will incorporate innovative measures to reduce maintenance, utility and other operating costs.

Building codes

• Due to spatial constraints horizontal expansion is rarely a viable solution therefore the design solutions must consider vertical expansion. The building regulations generally allow for up to 3 storied structures.
• For more information, please refer to National, State and Local Building Codes for educational buildings for schools in India.

Safety considerations

• Designers are asked to consider entry and exit strategies for students and teachers.
• Fire safety should be considered
• Design of your classroom must be structurally sound within the context of the existing building

Student Collaboration

Throughout the submission period we will be planning opportunities for design teams to gain input from students, teachers and school administrators. We welcome design teams to ask questions and engage with students. Please check back periodically for more information and a schedule.

Budget

The total budget for a school of 400 students is USD 10,000 (INR 480,000). This should cover upgrades to 10 classrooms, a separate computer laboratory classroom and the storefront (not inclusive of water and sanitation). Typically correspondents depend upon additional enrollment to fund classroom expansion and upgrades. As a result, the budgetary requirements are constrained by their ability to attract students.

You are asked to develop a classroom system (including a classroom that can double as a computer lab), and the elements that would enable views of active learning at street level (i.e. a storefront for education.) Because schools vary in size, the cost per classroom must be in line with the costs outlined below:

Total Budget = USD 10,000 (INR 480,000)
For 10 Classroom+1 Computer lab + storefront =Total scope of work

Cost per sqft
USD 10,000/11= USD 909 (INR 43,600)
USD 909/250sqft (typical classroom)
Total cost per sqft= USD 3.63/sqft (INR 175)

Design Requirements

• Classrooms must accommodate up to 40 students and 1 teacher
• Your submission materials should include a list of building materials used in your design (either in the project description or illustrated in the drawings.)
• Show how your classroom can be adapted for use as a computer lab.
• Show how your approach supports the need for a storefront for education as described in the design considerations
• Classrooms must include storage for students' bags, teaching aids.
• Lighting levels at desk height must be between 150 and 300 lux.
• Acoustic levels should approximate 45-50 db in an empty classroom to allow teachers to be easily heard by students even in densely populated, high traffic commercial urban zones.
• Fresh air supplied at 2 room air changes per hour using natural ventilation.
• Construction of upgrades should take no longer than six weeks to execute (including planning). This being the standard construction time in this case study.
• We have provided sample documentation of three Rumi Schools. Your submission materials should include drawings that illustrate how your design would apply to each setting. (Download documentation) refer back to school construction documentation
• Estimated construction costs should be provided and cannot exceed the budget defined above.
• All dimensioning should follow the Metric System of Measurement (feet not meters.)

Design teams must illustrate how their classroom design meets these requirements through sectional diagrams. Additional sectional drawings can be uploaded as optional files.

Translated briefs:
Română
русский язык
Español
Deutsch