Primary School of SIKA, Burkina Faso

Basic information

In 2008 a French group funded the construction of 3 classrooms, complying with the governmental standard of school buildings.

The building is constructed of concrete and bricks, with a corrugated iron roof. In the dry period the classes heat up very fast, and in the wet period the rain pounds so noisily on the roof that it is impossible to study.
On top of all that, the classrooms of the school are overcrowded - about 80 pupils per class. Many families can’t afford the school fees of only a few euros a year. Due to the overcrowding of the existing schools, many kids of the region don’t even have a possibility to go to school.

Sika’s primary school serves the Nasserê region, which is 100 km north of Burkina Fasos capital Ouagadougou in the Sudan-Sahel climate Zone. People mainly work in agriculture and animal breeding. Profits are small and water supply is low although there are a few wells in the village.

Need

The government advises a minimum of 6 classrooms per school, with accommodation for the teachers and their families. Currently there are only 3 classrooms in Sika. Teachers, sent by the government, have to sleep in the classrooms, for there is no accommodation available - neither in town nor at the school.

Program

Each of the two buildings placed around the central courtyard consists of two facing (class-) rooms, a cistern for rainwater and large, shaded open spaces. The shaded outside of the building is dominated by a clay-moulded landscape, serving as seats, place to lie in the cool of the shade or even study in small groups. It’s spaces and niches, accentuated by a few plantings, invite the kids to play and romp about. In the space between the cistern and the neighbouring room the shaped clay-moulded landscape transforms into two seating rows facing a blackboard painted on to the wall of the cistern, serving both as a more retreated space for pupils during school break and as an additional option for the lessons to take place – an outdoor classroom for more casual lessons or little presentations, singing hours etc.
The inside of the classroom is coloured light blue, spacious, with big windows filling the space light, but blocking direct sunlight. At the same time they don’t block the air circulation.
The size of the classes and the folding doors on the facing walls allow various seating and learning arrangements: in groups, rows, with or without table, or even a combination of both rooms forming one big (class)room for general classes, events etc. - or define smaller areas, dividing the class with woven grass screens.
An other feature of the building is its large (book-) shelf, which is incorporated into the entire wall facing the courtyard. The shelves can be used for schoolbooks as storage and for the schools growing library. Starting with a few books and a little library, which can be built up slowly with the schools money generated from school fees.
Aligned to the head end of the building either a stable or garden is added.

These are important places not only for the pupils to learn about plants and animals of the region, but also for products to be sold at the near market to raise the schools income, which could be used to help families who otherwise could not afford sending their children to school.
Thus the classroom does not only serve as school for the children of the surrounding villages but also as a centre for the community of the entire region, a space for events, the library and the sports-pitch, water resource for the kids are essential.

Water

The capacity of the cistern is calculated according to the FAO guidelines for cisterns. The need of 2 litres a day for every pupil and teacher plus water for the garden / stable is collected by the roof in the rain period from June to September. For easier access and water withdrawal and less piping the cistern is built above ground. Therefore the students gain one more space to relax, play and study in the shade.

local influence

The clay-houses usually built in this area are constructed as a compound of huts around a central courtyard. Normally a high wall surrounds the property, when a family buys a new, standalone house.
They would build a wall around their property separating private from public ground.
This introverted scheme of building towards an open space is applied to the arrangement of the campus, the teachers’ houses and in a smaller scale in each of the buildings itself. The classroom’s organisation emphasizes the orientation towards the central courtyard defining an “inside” and “outside” together with the other buildings

Light walls, screens and fences are usually made of grass, woven in various thicknesses and sizes. Following this local tradition and incorporating it in a new context, the woven screens can be arranged to define smaller spaces within the classroom or as mobile presentation-board – for e.g. pupils’ drawings or mobile teaching aid.

“Flexible”

- was one of the main points suggested by the students a classroom should be. “Not always the same!” A change of space adds to the experience of learning, gives it an exiting twist.
1)Trying to offer as much “changing spaces” as possible in simple ways (e.g. grass woven fences, combined rooms), the classes and learing situations are not restricted to one fixed position. Smaller groups can easily be created. There are many different possibilities to “have classes”.

2) One can sit in the shaded space between the cistern and the main building overlooking both the surrounding landscape and the courtyard.
An other option would be to connect both classrooms by simply opening up the foldable doors, including the central “buffer” zone and forming one big space, which could be used for events or other social gatherings.

3) The garden and the stable serve as an additional space for the more practical part.

The building:

The main parts of the construction are made of mud bricks; the walls, buttresses, the flooring of the terrace and the “landscape”. Only the highly strained parts of the building (the roof construction) and the ring beam on the top of the walls are made of metal or concrete. The foundation is made of erratic blocks.
The inside contains only environmentally friendly materials as wood, grass and clay plastering. The resources used for the chairs are recycled old tyres held together by the wood of palettes formally used for transporting goods.

During the early and late hours of the day the direct sunlight is blocked by the main part of the windows’ construction. It can be folded to the top rather than opened sideward. The upper part can be folded out to reflect sunlight onto the ceiling. In this way the windows protect from direct sunlight at any height of the sun, but at the same time lighting the class indirectly. The light blue colored walls help lighten up the class and give the classroom a cooling feeling in the hot climate.

The air layer between the roof and the classrooms ceiling protects the classes from heating up in the sun. On the top of the library wall of the room openings let the hot, used up air escape, keeping the class in a constant air change, preventing to hot temperatures.

List of material
Corrugated iron, reinforcing steal, solar panels, concrete, metal windows, mud-bricks, clay plastering, hollow blocks, bricks, gravel, sand, wood panels, erratic blocks, grass, wood-palettes, old tyres,

Location