SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION:

MUDBRICKS, BAMBOO AND PALM

Photo: Bernardo Salce

Low income countries are well ahead when it comes to experimenting with building materials that are both sustainable and inexpensive. This is to be expected, for the use of such materials in more prosperous economies is largely driven by relatively abstract considerations such as climate change and declining biodiversity.

When you are low on funding you have to be quite inventive if you are going to build anything at all. Globally, in countries both rich and poor, the message is getting across that we must reckon with the ecological footprint in what we undertake, if we are to learn from that inventiveness and the resulting know-how and experience. An exemplary project in this respect is the secondary school that Architetti Senza Frontiere Italia designed for the village of Roong in Cambodia, on commission of the Italian NGO Missione Possibile. It is striking how well modern, rational construction methods chime with the use of traditional, locally available materials, which are sustainable and inexpensive.

Two objectives were accordingly served: the school could be built efficiently, and ample use could be made of a local workforce and building materials from the vicinity, instead of having to transport these resources from elsewhere. Besides supporting the local economy, moreover, this approach helps strengthen communal identity. Western building methods and materials such as concrete, steel, aluminium and corrugated sheet roofing are, in developing countries, all too often applied indiscriminately, as though the designers were bent on erasing existing local expertise and traditions. Neither the climate nor the local community and ecology profits from this way of working.

Photo: ASF Italia

Drawing: ASF Italia

Photo: ASF Italia

The secondary school in Roong, or at least the first two buildings, gave Architetti Senza Frontiere Italia a rare opportunity for intensive involvement in the successive building stages, from the production of building materials to the eventual construction. It enabled the architects to conduct the building process with maximal respect for local practices and ecological considerations. The low-pitched roof that covers each building consists of a bamboo frame filled with woven palm leaves, and, to establish some standardization for traditional materials, special mudbricks and bamboo elements were specified for the walls. The architects coached untrained local workers in the production of the materials and in their use in the building process, thereby enabling the workers to apply their new knowledge and skills to future projects. The result of all this would ideally be to make seventy-five percent of the structural materials obtainable through local production, making steel and concrete necessary only for the foundations. The pressure of time sometimes rules out adherence to more sustainable solutions, however, as is apparent in the third building which was completed in the second phase of the project. In this instance concrete also had to be used for the walls, although natural materials such as bamboo and vegetable fibre were still of course used for windows and finishing work.

The school consists of three buildings: two blocks with classrooms and a small block of toilets. The space between them serves as a school playground. The blocks are mutually positioned to minimize any interference with natural ventilation. The choice of a rational production process and hence a rational design amounts to more than just the pursuit of efficiency: the entire province of Takeo (near the capital city Phnom Penh), where Roong is located, is rapidly losing its rural character due to industrialization. A more traditional kind of architecture would easily look out of place in the village. The scheme of the school is innovative. The generous width given to the corridor creates a space that serves more purposes than just access to the classrooms. Besides providing a place for non-classical forms of teaching, it gives the students an area to meet and play together. A similarly differentiated use may be made of the two internal spaces between the classrooms – far from a luxury in the rainy season. Variable openings between the billets of bamboo provide connection between the classrooms and the corridor, and the large gaps between the façade elements similarly unite the corridor space with the playground outside. Understandably, the main purpose of this structure is to facilitate the ventilation that is so essential in a tropical climate; but in social and pedagogical respects too, the remarkable school is a paragon of openness and connectivity.

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Photos: Bernardo Salce