Teaching Staff Housing
Gando, Burkina Faso
The project seeks to develop a sustainable form of construction and to rehabilitate the use of earth as a building material.
The outer enclosure comprises a solid roof and walls, which serve to reduce heat gains internally.
The basic idea behind the design was to develop a module that is as big as a traditional round hut, and can be combined to a complex whole. The Design is very simple and the used materials are reduced to the minimum so that it can be easily adopted by the villagers.
The six houses for teachers and there families are disposed in a wide arc that marks the southern limits of the school site. The choice of the site and the curvilinear layout work well in the ensemble and evoke the contour of the compounds nearby
Barrel vaults of stabilized earth brick were used for roofs, introducing a new technology in the region but one that makes use of local resources and is climatically efficient. The 40 cm walls, consisting of 40x20x10cm solid earth blocks, stand on foundations of granite stones and concrete, which prevent moisture rising. With the help of all the villagers, roughly 15,000 blocks were produced altogether-between 600 and 1,000 a day.
A tie beam at the top of the wall bears the loads from the barrel-vault roof, which consists of an in-situ layer of reinforced concrete poured on permanent shuttering in the form of compressed earth blocks (blocs de terre comprimés – btc) the roofs were constructed to heights of 100cm and 150cm. At those points where the two intersect, a sickle-shaped opening is formed that provides a means of ventilating and daylighting the interior. Roof projections also protect he walls against erosion and the penetration of moisture. In traditional houses, a special type of lean loam rendering – mixed with vegetable juice and cow dung – is applied to the outer walls as protection against weathering. The additives are of little use in the rainy season, however, and they also attract termites which eventually destroy the walls. In the present scheme, the organic additives in the 3cm rendering were replaced with bitumen. The climax of the building work is the tamping of the clay floor to create a smooth, homogeneous surface. The participation of the villagers in this and other process was of great importance for the project as a whole. It also serves as a means of sensitizing them to traditional building materials and techniques and to new developments in this field.
The basic idea behind the design was to develop a module that is as big as a traditional round hut, and can be combined to a complex whole. The Design is very simple and the used materials are reduced to the minimum so that it can be easily adopted by the villagers.
The six houses for teachers and there families are disposed in a wide arc that marks the southern limits of the school site. The choice of the site and the curvilinear layout work well in the ensemble and evoke the contour of the compounds nearby
Barrel vaults of stabilized earth brick were used for roofs, introducing a new technology in the region but one that makes use of local resources and is climatically efficient. The 40 cm walls, consisting of 40x20x10cm solid earth blocks, stand on foundations of granite stones and concrete, which prevent moisture rising. With the help of all the villagers, roughly 15,000 blocks were produced altogether-between 600 and 1,000 a day.
A tie beam at the top of the wall bears the loads from the barrel-vault roof, which consists of an in-situ layer of reinforced concrete poured on permanent shuttering in the form of compressed earth blocks (blocs de terre comprimés – btc) the roofs were constructed to heights of 100cm and 150cm. At those points where the two intersect, a sickle-shaped opening is formed that provides a means of ventilating and daylighting the interior. Roof projections also protect he walls against erosion and the penetration of moisture. In traditional houses, a special type of lean loam rendering – mixed with vegetable juice and cow dung – is applied to the outer walls as protection against weathering. The additives are of little use in the rainy season, however, and they also attract termites which eventually destroy the walls. In the present scheme, the organic additives in the 3cm rendering were replaced with bitumen. The climax of the building work is the tamping of the clay floor to create a smooth, homogeneous surface. The participation of the villagers in this and other process was of great importance for the project as a whole. It also serves as a means of sensitizing them to traditional building materials and techniques and to new developments in this field.