Recycled Brick School

Mark Dudek

Description

This project in Shicheng County reflects the nature of its location and combines austerity in its construction processes with a robust and highly architectural form that carries with it the best in passive sustainability practices. With the aim of rationalising down a host of small local schools into larger more efficient institutions, the Chinese government is currently consolidating many primary schools in remote areas. In this case a decrepit old building fit only for demolition made way for a more efficient low cost structure, expanding the school roll from 220 to 450 pupils. The challenge for architects John Lin and Joshua Bolchover, who are part of the University of Hong Kong’s not-for-profit design agencies at the Faculty of Architecture, was to make something special within tight budgetary constraints whilst evolving the orthodoxies of the traditional Chinese educational system without too much radical change. The hope was that the new form would not only be safer and more hygienic, it would also stimulate learning through wider social interaction.

The site lies in a rural village populated by farmers growing tobacco and lotus seed. Annual incomes are around 260 USD which is near starvation wages. This places a strong emphasis on austerity across the board. For the architects, the idea of recycling felt right from the beginning. Materials from the demolished school were saved and redeployed in the new building. The roof is constructed from reinforced concrete which is strong enough to take a thick layer of recycled brick rubble sourced from the demolished sites. This provides greater thermal mass, creating a substratum for a natural green roof, trapping wind-blown plants and mosses. The roof steps down to meet a brick wall on the street side of the site, which is full of perforations to create natural ventilation transmitting subtle patterns of light into the circulation spine.

The roof and external corridor walls form a thickened protective edge which is a counterpoint to the internal playground façade, which is more open, articulated by concrete fins and vertical strips of glazing. The natural topography of the site is maintained to create a series of external steps that extend into the courtyard. From the stepped roof profile with its mossy growth to the external play areas which engage with the surrounding terrain the whole has a coherence that speaks both of nature and new technology, bonding the traditional with the promise of a more comfortable future for its impoverished families. The building itself has an appropriate civic presence and with its simple sustainability it is warm in winter and cool in summer.

Drawings

Ground floor plan with three classrooms, an entrance hall, a media room and library with an additional open classroom

Source: Joshua Bolchover and John Lin, Rural Urban Framework

The fenestration on the courtyard side is evenly spread across the length of the façade in form of deeply recessed vertical window finials in heavy recycled brick to provide shading

Source: Joshua Bolchover and John Lin, Rural Urban Framework

Classroom ventilation and cooling strategy

Source: Joshua Bolchover and John Lin, Rural Urban Framework

Photos

Perforated thick masonry walls to the south let prevailing winds pass into the colonnade, cooling and de-humidifying air in the classroom

Source: Rural Urban Framework

Internal view of the rear colonnade

Source: Rural Urban Framework