New Training Center Campus & Temporary Dormitories

Mae Mo, Thailand

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Kwel Kah Baung Migrant Learning Center

New Training Center Campus & Temporary Dormitories

Mae Mo, Thailand

Firm

a.gor.a architects

Type

Residential › Student Housing
Government + Health › Medical Facility

YEAR

2012

Mae Tao Clinic is a humanitarian organization based in the Thai town of Mae Sot a few kilometers from the Burmese border. Besides free medical treatment, providing shelters and dry food for over 3000 children, Mae Tao clinic also started an education program in health care, sanitation and disease control for Burmese migrants. This should help to develop a social fabric in the border region and inside Burma in the foreseeable future. Space at the Clinic has been completely taken up with the need to serve the ever-increasing volume of patients. Therefor Mae Tao Clinic had to find land to build a new facility to conduct their training programs.
Adobe, as a natural and environmental friendly material, was used for both the classroom and office walls. To protect these walls from the impact of standing water, a 30cm raised concrete slab, as a base, had to be built first. The roof is a timber construction with composite roof tiles. The windows and doors, also made out of reused Timber, were later painted green & blue for the classroom and ochre for the office building. The materials used are locally available and well known for their users, which allows easy maintenance and results in low costs.

Funded by APHEDA – Union Aid Abroad from Australia, the construction of the 2nd phase, which included two classrooms and an office building, began in September 2011, and was completed in July 2012.
The construction of the second phase was conveniently placed in order to minimize the negative environmental impact and reduce the energy consumption of the buildings. The orientation of the buildings and the window locations allow the main wind direction to flow through the houses and cool down the inside of the buildings, without the additional use of air/con or fans.
For the construction of the buildings, adobe bricks and second hand timber were chosen to ensure that most of the materials should be whether reused, recycled or given back to the ground without any further damage to the environment.

Adobe bricks have been used in Thailand for many years. The values of using them to construct building walls are not only based on environmental and economic reasons, mud is also an easy material to work with and allows everybody in the community to participate in the construction process. Due to its composition and thickness, earthen walls are durable yet biodegradable. They provide sufficient thermal mass to the buildings to ensure excellent thermal performance and other beneficial attributes such as sound and fireproofing.