School in the Desert. School of Bamboo

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School in the Desert. School of Bamboo

Firm

ARCò

Type

Educational › Elementary School

YEAR

2010

SIZE

25,000 sqft - 100,000 sqft

BUDGET

$100K - 500K

Social and territorial context
Abu Hindi Bedouin community is composed by two main camps in the South of Jerusalem, West Bank, and several isolated groups, for a total of 2.700 people. Abu Hindi is South of Israeli colony called Maale Adumim, in a semi-desertic region, next to a seasonal creek bed. On the southern side of Abu Hindi there is Qedar colony, which is hostile to all Bedouin communities in the area.
The camp is downstream of the biggest dumping ground in the area, which is used both by Jerusalem city and Israeli colony. A slurry pool, right close to the creek bed, during summer, causes miasmas going towards the village and making air unbreathable. Toxic substances enter the food chain of local inhabitants and particularly of children, through sheeps’milk, as sheeps eat grass in the hills around.
Water supply is realized with a service rubber pipe of 2 cm diameter, often damaged with infiltrations. As a consequence water is polluted because of the dumping ground and slurry leaks coming from the pool, which often happen during winter rainfalls.
Abu Hindi has no connection with the electric net and the phone net. The community uses a hired gas oil generator, which is unsufficient for the local needs and cannot work in a continuous way.

Architectural Project
    The “Desert school” project faces particular restrictions imposed by the Israeli military authority, which state the maintenance of the existing situation and the impossibility of volumetric reshaping for the existing school building. This one didn’t fit its function nor could answer in a correct way to the local climatic conditions.
Firstly the insufficient acoustic insulation between classrooms and with the external environment didn’t allow a correct lessons’course; secondly the existing metal sheet structure couldn’t isolate from the high thermal variations, which are typical of Wadi Abu Hindi area.

The project approach finds its roots in a relationship net of mutual trust, created by Vento di Terra NGO with the local communities. These last ones play an active role in the decision making process, until the organization and concrete realization of the project. All these aspects are of fundamental importance in a general process of identity making for each new building. In this way we also have the result of promoting local occupation and job training for new building technologies.
Technical and architectural decisions, taken by Arcò team, have the purpose of retrofitting the existing building and transforming it in a new one, which is climatically comfortable and energetically sustainable. That’s why we worked on two main themes, which are natural ventilation and thermal insulation, thinking to a second project step with a rainwater collecting system and a photovoltaic plant, to substitute the actual gas oil generator.
Natural ventilation was created by raising and tilting the roof, thus realizing an efficient air circulation system. New openings are 60 cm high on the west side and 30 cm high on the east side, and can be closed with sliding plexiglass panels. The creation of new openings led to rethink the whole steel structure, which is the only part of the building which was realized by a specialized building company. The existing metal sheets which formed the roof were substituted with sandwich panels, thus improving the whole building thermal insulation.
Thermal insulation of the external walls was realized by adapting the “pisé” technique to local needs. It’s a technique in which continuous walls are built by laying and stamping layers of humid soil and straw between wooden boards, which are used as quarterdecks. The final result in the school is a wall 34 cm thick, including lime plastering, bamboo panels as quarterdecks, soil and straw layer, existing external metal sheet, air cavity and a final external shading bamboo panel. Thermal insulation was improved by placing a new wooden pavement, too.
Acoustic insulation for the internal walls was realized by building new walls between the existing classrooms. The existing metal sheet was substituted with stabilised soil bricks, produced by local artisans in the JordanValley, finally covered with a white lime plastering.
All works were realized in two months, six days par week, eight workers par day, all workers coming from the village. Thus works took place only during the summer school vacation, working hard in July, which is the month before Ramadan period in 2010.

September 14th 2010, the school year 2010/2011 was opened with 130 students coming from the Jahalin Bedouin villages in the Al Azarije area.
The official inauguration ceremony will take place in the end of October 2010, and local authorities will take part, together with the representatives of the Italian townships net, the Italian and foreign consulate authorities in Jerusalem.
The second project step will realize the refurbishment of the headmaster’s office, of the teachers’room and of the library, during autumn and winter seasons.

We used:               Bamboo 500 m2
                                               Straw 3000 kg
                               Lime plastering 325 m2
                               Soil 20 m3
                                               Sandwich panels 314 m2
                               Wooden pavement 180 m2
                               Steel structure 5x5 – 810 m lineal
                               Straw-stabilised soil bricks 120 m3 per 15600 kg