Objectives

A comfortable, safe, quiet, student friendly, flexible learning environment.
A design that uses inexpensive, locally sourced materials that is easy for unskilled labor to build.
A place that will be an attractive and positive focus for the local community.
An innovative design that demonstrates the value and potential of traditional, sustainable building practices, using stabilized mud brick for walls, packed earth for floors, and corrugated metal roof combined with an under-layer of thatch and woven mats to provide sound and heat insulation. Also to introduce bamboo as a construction material and a sustainable and less costly alternative to timber.

Full description of proposed design

Our schoolroom will be a stand alone structure built of stabilized mud brick walls with a corrugated metal roof and an under-layer ceiling of grass thatch sandwiched between light colored woven mats. The roof will provide significant overhang for shade and to protect the walls from rain. The interior floors will be of packed earth, treated with oil, or with an over layer of a straw/clay mixture or wax (whichever method proves most available and effective for the particular site of the school). The windows will be of different shapes and dimensions that allow for use as a teaching tool. Specifically there will be circular openings made from repurposed oil drums, and large triangular windows with sun ray patterns rather than traditional barred windows. The window frames and door will be painted in various primary colors. The room is one that can be repeated around a curving pattern to create an inner yard with a simple structure in the center for gatherings. The roof is designed to collect rainwater which will drain into an underground cistern built of ferrocement with the water pumped out for school use by means of a simple bicycle wheel hand pump. The room will be ventilated by cross breezes through the windows, the circular openings at the seated student’s level, and the high openings between the roof and walls. The shape of the room focuses student attention to the front and creates a more semi-circular pattern of traditional community gatherings rather than the strict linear pattern of a rectangular room.

Sustainable Features

Built of stabilized mud brick (stabilized with straw and protected with an outer layer of earth plaster) -- easy to make, uses less resources than fired clay brick. Done right and with proper roofing and footing to protect from the elements mud brick can be made from almost any type soil and can last indefinitely. Bricks can be made right on site. Mud brick will create a thicker wall than standard fired brick, provide more thermal mass and keep the rooms cooler and quieter.
Bamboo harvested in Uganda can be used for the roof trusses, replacing more costly and inferior quality timber and helping to alleviate deforestation concerns.
Interior floor of classroom of packed earth, treated with oil or wax to stabilize. Less costly and more environmentally friendly than concrete.
Rainwater harvesting from corrugated tin roof will provide much needed clean water supply, housed in underground cisterns.
Shade provided by roof overhangs, bamboo trellis with flowering fruit vine, and trees.
As with most of rural Uganda the school site will be off the power grid. Classroom lighting will be provided by daylight through the large triangular windows on three sides of the room and through the openings around the top of the walls with indirect light reflecting off of the woven mat ceiling.

Pedagogical Features

Windows of different shapes and dimensions that allow for use as teaching tool. ie: Circular windows divided into 4ths, 6ths, or 8ths. Triangular windows with angular sun ray patterns which can be used for math measurements and calculations. Window frames painted in various primary colors. Rainwater cisterns can be used for measuring and recording rainfall and water use. Rainwater harvesting, vine growing trellises, student gardens, and shade providing fruit bearing trees can be used for introducing permaculture concepts. Teaching materials (books, papers, etc.) to be stored in a simple locking cupboard with shelves, to be made locally along with student’s and teacher’s desks.

Materials

Roofing:
Corrugated galvanized sheet metal
Bamboo for trusses
Locally made woven mats
Grass thatch
Galvanized sheet metal gutter and drain pipe for water catchment

Walls:
Stabilized mud brick (mixture of mud and straw) covered with mud plaster
Concrete for corner roof support columns and beams
Fired brick for a splash proof course below the mud brick (approx. 30 cm)
Wire mesh to cover openings between roof and wall

Foundation:
Rubble & Stone
Concrete for the footings of the corner columns

Windows & Door:
Triangular windows w/ bars in specialized shapes constructed in metal by local workshop. Bars to be painted in primary colors.
Door constucted in metal by local workshop.
Round windows constructed from 58 cm diameter oil drums, cut to provide 2 windows per drum, with metal bars in geometric patterns welded in place. Frames and bars to be painted in primary colors.

Interior Floors:
Packed earth treated with oil, straw and clay, or wax.

Exterior corridors:
Fired brick
Sand

Trellises over exterior corridors:
Bamboo
Local climbing plant (Passion fruit vine or other native vine)

Water cistern:
Ferrocement
Woven wire fabric
Wood
PVC pipe
Bicycle wheel pump

Location