Malawi Schools project

The brief was to improve the quality of the light and environmental performance for the cost of an existing school at £6 per sq ft. This totalled £15,000 per school catering for about 170 children.

The orientation of the schools in relation to sun-paths and local prevailing winds, are key to the design and construction of individual schools. The building not only had to produce greatly improved internal light levels, better ventilation, and cooler temperatures, but also be configured so that the buildings could be used out of teaching hours as a meeting or activity point by local communities in rural areas.

The brief therefore required a school format that could be built using mostly locally available materials, and by local people. The aim was also to increase local skills and, by using common secondary species of timber rather than commercially valuable stock, mediate Malawi’s significant deforestation problem.

The schools central linking terraces, with double doors to classrooms on either side, are flanked by shaded spaces at either end. This creates five teaching spaces, and community-use terraces for multi-use.