Natural Adversities: Finding Solid Ground for School Architecture

Each year, schools damaged by natural disasters often leave hundreds of thousands of students with no access to education. Therefore, there is an urgency for design research that responds to the demand for affordable, innovative, resilient, and environmentally sustainable school buildings. Studio Mozambique is an advanced research design studio that focuses on the cultural, economic, political, and spatial history of schools in cities susceptible to natural disasters. The work presented in this paper serves as a compendium of post-disaster recovery of primary educational institutions. Additionally, it can potentially help answer these fundamen¬tal questions: Which factors and parameters inform a more integrated design of a school building? Which processes can be adapted for local fabrication or rapid deployment within the limitations of a remote site? What materials and construction systems are best suited to the limited means of transportation and fabrication (i.e., light-weight, local, reused, weather-resistant, adaptability, resilient)? What strategies could be implemented for the design of school structures for functional integration of sustainable characteristics (i.e., use of local renewable or biodegradable materials and structural optimization)? As a proposal for an integrated research design curriculum, this paper describes the strategy, approach, assessment, and comprehensive planning of a flood-resistant, affordable, resilient, and environmentally sustainable school campus in Chokwe, Mozambique following the 2019 cyclone Idai.

https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.Teach.2021.13

Volume Editors
Jonathan A. Scelsa & Jørgen Johan Tandberg

ISBN
978-1-944214-38-8