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Post by Nka on Jan 15, 2016 16:15:40 GMT -6
4th EARTH ARCHITECTURE COMPETITION
Designing a School for Ghana
Nka Foundation announces a call for entries for its 4th Earth Architecture Competition: Designing a School for Ghana, an international architecture competition open to graduates and advanced students of architecture, design and others from around the world who think earth architecture can be beautiful.
WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE?
The challenge is to design a unit of a school for students of ages 12 to 18 years that can be built with earth and other local materials in rural Ghana. Total costs of constructing the design entry must not exceed $8,000 (USD) for materials; local labor excluded from this price point. The jurors will use judging criteria involving functionality, aesthetics and technical matter to select three prize-winning designs. Jurors will award prizes for 1st: $1,500; 2nd: $1,000; and 3rd: $500. Honorable mentions may be awarded at the discretion of the jury but will receive no cash prize.
WHERE IS THE CONSTRUCTION SITE?
The construction site will be Abetenim Village, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
HOW TO REGISTER AND SUBMIT AN ENTRY
Registration deadline is April 25, 2016 and submission of entries is until May 30, 2016. Here is the design brief: yadi.sk/i/RCoDin2WrLmEo it is posted on Download the design brief and use it as guide for creating your design entry.
To participate, register at www.eventbrite.com/e/4th-earth-architecture-competition-tickets-20450604308 and submit your design entry via mudhousedesign@mail.com . For additional information, see the competition discussion board: nkaprojects.boards.net or contact info@nkafoundation.org / www.nkafoundation.org
If you have a question and need the answer to enable you create your design entry, post it here: nkaprojects.boards.net/thread/58/answers-page
and you will get a response from the competition organizer.
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Post by Nka on Jan 18, 2016 23:10:17 GMT -6
SITE MAP: ABETENIM(Abetenim on world map: Type the name, "Abetenim" on Google map and you can see the topography. Here are a few maps to get started.
 
Abetenim on the Map
Abetenim Soil Sample, Anna Webster 2015
ABOUT THE PROJECT SITE
Abetenim Village is in the Ejisu-Juaben District (http://ejisujuaben.ghanadistricts.gov.gh) in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Abetenim is about 40 kilometres from Kumasi, which is the second largest city in Ghana. Abetenim occupies a geographical area of about 4km by 5km with most of the land covered by green vegetation. The village is named Abetenim (village of palm trees) because of the many palm trees in the land.
Today, the population is about a thousand people, with 60% of them between the ages of 1 to 25 years. The current Paramount Chief of Abetenim is Nana Owusu II. The standard of living is rather low. The village is dotted by mud house types, built in ways that tell of abject economic poverty. The people of the village are essentially farmers with few of them producing cooking oil from the palm fruits, which they sell to traders from far and near. The local language is Twi. About 98% of the adults in the village are unable to read or write proficiently because they did not gain elementary school education. Abetenim used to have only a primary school, which is grade 1 to grade 6. Children on graduating from the primary school had to stop schooling. The main excuse was because the closest junior high school they could attend was in Juaben. Those children eager to continue schooling had to walk to Juaben to attend school. With Nka foundation coming to the village, the village can now has its own Junior high school which was built through the contributions made by visitors of the foundation. The junior high school now has a total of 52 pupils and 8 teachers.
The Abetenim is situated on a flat land off a laterite road from Juaben Township. The top soil is red earth mixed with gravel, which is an ideal proportion for rammed earth or cob construction. The primary means of transportation in Abetenim and the nearby villages are by tro tro and taxis. Fortunately, a taxi driver lives in Abetenim; we hire his services as needed.
In general, the Ejisu-Juaben District has four semi-urban settlements that are Ejisu, Juaben, Besease and Bonwire. In Ejisu-Juaben District and environs, there are cultural sites such as Bomwire Kente Village, Ntonso Cloth Printing Village, Ahwia Carving Centre, Bobiri Forest Reserve/Butterfly Sanctuary, and the cultural centres of the historic city of Kumasi. There are Internet Cafes in nearby township of Effiduase and Kumasi. In Abetenim, you can access the Internet with pen drive wireless connection, which is a service provided by most regional phone companies. Power is by public electricity. There is water well in Abetenim, of the hand-pump type.
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Post by Nka on Jan 20, 2016 0:43:32 GMT -6
PRELIMINARY SITE PLAN FOR THE ABETENIM SCHOOL  Site for the School Landscape Site Plan of the School
This above design is the proposed Landscape Site Plan for the school by an Online team of architects and a landscape architect. It provides us with a tentative layout for the various units that make up the community secondary school. Note that this is rather the preliminary site plan to provide a guide for a final Master Plan to be done based on site.
Your role, as a participant in the 4th Earth Architecture Competition is to design one of the units of the school with reference to the above landscape site plan. By this, your design submission can be either a classroom, a science laboratory, a dormitory type or another unit of the school.
Someone asked: “What do you mean by this: ‘to design one of the following types for the school: a classroom type, laboratory type, office building type, dormitory type, group toilet type, cafeteria type and a dwelling type for the teachers.’ That the design has to include all of those functions?” No, one design entry does not have to include all of the functions on the school site. You will design your entry to serve only one function. So, your design entry can be either a classroom type, or a dormitory type.
You also asked: “How many square meters more or less?” The classroom type, laboratory type, office building type and dormitory type all have different dimensions. For example:
classroom type = around 4.5 x 9 m (around 40 m2),
laboratory type = around 80 m2, dormitory type = around 500 m2, cafeteria type = around 500 m2, dwelling type for the teachers = around 150 m2
Yes, the construction budget for your design entry should be $8000 (USD) or less. And keeping in mind that the above site plan is a preliminary plan, it is not the final master plan. By this, you may re-design the classroom module to create a variation / type to be built in phases. Likewise, you may re-design the dorm courtyard to create a type to be built in phases (stages / incremental) by breaking up the dorm courtyard into units, and then focus your budget on one unit.
Here is a photo of the site for the school, where your design entry will be built. 
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Post by Nka on Jan 21, 2016 23:25:59 GMT -6
JURY
The body of the jurors for the 4th Earth Architecture Competition is as follows:
David COLE, Director of Building Trust International (UK)
David is a founding partner and director of Building Trust international a non-profit organization supporting thousands of people by engaging designers in providing better housing solutions, schools and medical facilities. Building Trust also supports global conservation NGO’s with guidance on community engagement and promotes play for all by providing inner city play spaces. Building Trust currently operate in 24 countries and have more than 25,000 members. As the director of the organization David provides design support alongside management and advancement of the stations and their reach. In 2015, he won the Architects Sans Frontiers Challenging Practice award, most recently David has been appointed to advise Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and UNICEF on design for a number of international aid projects.
Ericka Alfaro CORTEZ, an architect in Nicaragua (Central America)
Ericka Alfaro Cortez is an architect in Nicaragua, Central America. Cortez studied architecture at the Universidad Centro Americana (UCA) in the 2000s. She has worked on social building projects for a rural community in Nicaragua, as the project manager, involving adobe construction. Recently, she was a part the design who helped create the preliminary site plan and types for the Abetenim Senior Secondary school for Ghana. From May 2014 to October 2015, Cortez worked as a consulting architect in a sustainable urban project called "Promoción de un transporte Ambientalmente sostenible para Managua Metropolitana" with PNUD/GEF from the United Nations Development Program and the local government to promote the use of bicycles as public transport. In 2011, Cordez participated in Holcim Awards for sustainable construction in Nicaragua with the Fundesonic NGO.
Markus KALTENBACH, Architect and Urban planner (Germany)
Markus Kaltenbach studied architecture and urban planning at the KIT, earning his diploma in 2013. During his studies he won the Prize of the Faculty three times and received scholarships from DAAD, KIT and the University of Art and Design Linz. Before working for Albert Speer & Partner, he worked for UN-Habitat and UM-net. He has participated in projects in such countries as India, Madagascar, Ghana, Kenia, South Africa, North and South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran as well as in Europe. He taught international urbanism at the Darmstadt University / MA Urban Studies from 2014-2015 and was guest lecturer at various universities. He is founding member of Raumgeschichten e.V.
Jason ORBE-SMITH, Founder and Lead Designer at Orbe Design Studio (USA)
Jason Orbe-Smith is the founder and lead designer of Orbe Design Studio, a hands-on collaborative design practice. We specialize in creating meaningful, beautiful and joyful projects with an emphasis on social humanitarian architecture, community-led design and contemporary natural building. Jason recently led a group of international volunteers for Nka Foundation's Kasirwa Earth House design-build workshop on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He is currently partnered with the non-profit organization Leading Through Reading, Chief Wumbe Dawuni, and the local community members of Bunbong, Ghana on the design and construction of the Bunbong Community Library in northern Ghana. Jason holds a Master of Architecture degree from SCI-Arc in Los Angeles, California
Cristiane H. SIMÓ, Professor of Architecture at SENAC in Sorocaba, São Paulo (Brazil)
Cristiane Simó has worked as architect for 15 years, with residential and commercial projects. Simó obtained Masters Degree in the visual arts at Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina (UDESC), Bachelors Degree in teacher education at Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo and Bachelors Degree in architecture and urbanism at Universidade Paulista (UNIP). Simó worked as an art teacher for 10 years in private and public schools. She have developed projects of commercial and residencial architecture as a self employed architect since 2000. In 2013 she joined the teaching staff at Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Comercial (SENAC), where she teaches marketing and aesthetics in architecture field. In 2015, she participated as a volunteer architect in the United Nation’s volunteering program to collaborate with other designers to design the Abetenim Community Secondary School in Ghana for Nka Foundation. Also, in 2015 Simó accepted a teaching position in the Interior Design department at UNIP, where she teaches design, materials and Ethics.
Inna STROKOUS, Architect/Interior designer (Ukraine)
Inna Strokous obtained Master's degree in Architecture in Poltava National Technical Yuriy Kondratyuk University, Ukraine, in 2013. The theme of her diploma was research of the ecological design in architecture and building in commercial and private building. After graduation, she continued her research in sustainable design and has created a range of the personal ecological projects. In 2014 she started work as an independent architect. One of her recent projects involved the development of the architectural design, interior design and 3-D visualization for Honolua Homes (USA) and she was involved in the architectural projects of the Child Care Center in Australia. Inna Strokous created a number of the interiors with eco-direction and sustainability, also developed eco conception in interior design. Her interiors and architectural projects were implemented in Ukraine and USA. In 2015, as a member of team of architects for Nka Foundation, who collaborated on the design of the Abetenim Senior Secondary school in Ghana.
LENNY SCHUTZ, Senior Creative Director at Housing.com
Lenny Schutz
has enjoyed his passion for Architectural Design during his projects which included Child of the universe - Black Lion Foundation (biggest philanthropy project in Africa over $30 billion) , Otto Infinito, Spykar Jeans, TPI India - Aston Martin furniture showroom and Bulthaup kitchens, Arsenal football club private bar, Bhorukas Pvt.ltd, Soul Konnect, JSK, One earth Financial - Earth Mountain Lodge, Gumarny Zubri a.s., along with many more schools allover Czech Republic.
Angeles Hevia VARGAS, Sustainable Architect and Environmental Consultant (Chile)
Angeles Hevia Vargas, is a Sustainable Architect and Environmental Consultant, with several years experience in architectural design. She holds an MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering from the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL, UK, a Diploma in Sustainable Architecture from PUC, Chile and an Architecture degree from UVM, Chile. Her experience as an architect includes working in London in a methodology framework proposal for the British Library, contributing as a sustainability reporter at The Architects’ Journal and participating in competitions such as the Passive House International Design Competition, where her team’s proposal for a house in Sofia, Bulgaria, became one of the finalists. Some of her designs include Kente House, a 120m2 rammed earth house/workshop for Kente weavers in Ashanti, after being shortlisted in the 2015 Mud House Design Competition. Her current projects include the design of a single-family, energy-efficient house in Valparaiso, Chile, which incorporates the metallic wattle and daub construction technique. Angeles also works as an Environmental Consultant with the target of reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions due to space heating along with improving thermal comfort in buildings. She believes sustainability is a way of combining traditional, vernacular, passive design and construction techniques with contemporary technology to provide modern, energy-efficient architecture.
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Post by Nka on Jan 30, 2016 23:17:42 GMT -6
LATRINE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
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Post by Nka on Feb 1, 2016 9:20:10 GMT -6
REGION-SPECIFIC DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS: THE ROOF
In the region, the traditional roof designs are of the gable and the hip roof types; these are well established. The roof of a classroom or a community center requires an ample ventilation such as the shed roof provides because it is used during the day. The roof of a dwelling unit does not need to be overly ventilation. What is necessary is a small vent in key position to allow the rising hot air to escape into the atmosphere. However, the vent ought to be covered with a material such as a mosquito net to avoid bugs from invading the house at night. However, we think that the roof design for a mud house should project beyond the wall to suggest a tall hat. That is to say, the eaves of the house should form an overhang from 3 to 5 feet, wrapped around the external walls to protect the wall from rain damage and to create veranda for sit out. The hip roof provides this coverage.
The hip roof is one of the simplest roof styles and is good for draining water and avoiding leaf build-up. It is one that is excellent for homes in areas with high winds, tornadoes and hurricanes, as it tends to withstand damage from these conditions better than a gabled or similar style roof. A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof that is designed with four rafters that meet in the middle of the roof. The “hip” is the area where one section of the roof meets another. Because the roof is slanted on all four sides, eaves and gutters are necessary on all sides. Hip roofs that have eaves all around are suitable for warm climates because they provide shade on all sides of the house, which will aid in keeping the home cool during the hot season.
Types of Roof Ventilation
  
Types of Vent Split Gable with Clerestory Windows Gable with Ridge Vent by Loc Nguyen.
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Post by Lawrence Lauren on Apr 29, 2016 1:32:39 GMT -6
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Post by janerodrigues on May 30, 2016 8:35:57 GMT -6
ENTRY # 5130079264TH EARTH COMPETITION - School for Ghana
Statement designer for classroomThe architectural party was inspired by the climatic conditions of the place and the behavior of the winds, to produce an integrated architecture with nature. The material used is earth-cement produced from one part cement to 10 parts earth and water. The mixing is done manually at the construction site; with a hand press can produce about 1500 massive blocks of soil cement per day. The traditional construction system can employ local labor. Windows of different types, with louvers allow cross ventilation, entry control winds and diffused lighting. Structural moorings walls were extended and function as louvers vertical. The Harmattan is a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind. To avoid dust the layout of the rooms is in open warhead formation southwest allowing fresh breeze and closed in northeastern avoiding the wind. In the courtyard between the rooms, pergolas with local vegetation allow shaded areas conviviality.
BUDGET. (USD)
Foundation And Floor 1000
Press for blocks 1050
Walls including to make the blocs, window, Door etc. 2000
Roof 3800
Miscellaneous Expense 150
Total Expenses 8000
Team Jane Rodrigues from Brazil:
(Leader Team) Jane Rodrigues Pinto, architecture student Brazil. Email: janer@bol.com.br
Ana Caroline Petrikic Silva, architecture student. E-mail: anapetrikic@gmail.com
Debora Rodrigues da Rosa Poltronieri, architecture student. E-mail: debora@peragro.com.br
Rodolfo Ribeiro de Farias, architecture student E-mail: rodolfo.ribeiro_@hotmail.com
Guiding Teacher Alessandra Migliorini Saldanha, architect. Address: . E-mail: ale_saldanha@hotmail.com
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Post by fabcla on May 31, 2016 9:10:05 GMT -6
Good evening we have a problem to upload the low file version of our design, we tried to upload it in the forum page but we received this error message:
Unable to upload file ta506179103.jpg.
Error: This forum has exceeded its attachment space limit. Your file cannot be uploaded.
For now, we resolved this problem pasting the google drive (that can be seen by everyone) link of our design.
Thank you
Best regards
Claudio Re and Fabio Ferrara
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