Description

The Gando School Library serves approximately 3,000 villagers. Architect Kéré designed the library and orchestrated its realization with little financial support and through the efforts of the community. A native of Gando at a time when no primary school existed, Kéré, the son of the village chief, was sent away to school at age 7. After having obtained a degree through a scholarship from the German government, Kéré’s success abroad inspired him to provide educational opportunities for children back in his village. The Gando Primary School that opened in 2001 is the result of a dedicated journey to build a school through fund raising, both private and government, and community endeavor. Built of indigenous materials by the citizens of the village, the school has been a great success, earning Kéré an Aga Khan Award and giving rise to additional projects related to the school and in surrounding areas.

The School Library is sited with the school buildings in an L-configuration. The library occupies the corner and forms a joint between the school building and the extension. All three buildings are similarly conceived as structures centrally placed between oversized rectilinear earthen plinths and overhanging tin roofs. The library structure is a 460 m² elliptical form with a single curved interior wall dividing the library into two; a small private reading room and a larger public one. Additional reading space is provided in the shallow curved spaces sunken into the earthen floor in the exterior space covered by the overhanging roof.

The materials for the library are local to the area: load-bearing walls of compressed earth, packed earth floor, corrugated tin roof. At the library two additional indigenous materials are used for the first time in construction: eucalyptus and clay pots. Eucalyptus, a weed typically used for firewood, serves to support the overhanging roof edge on the two long sides of the rectangular plinth. As slender columns, they form a screen facade along the front and the back, providing further spatial delineation in the buffer zone between the interior and the exterior. The clay pots are cast into the ceiling as skylights for light and ventilation. Construction methods, too, are simple to enable the participation of an unskilled community. Compressed earth bricks were produced through human efforts and hand-assembled on site. The clay pots were transformed into skylights on site with the removal of their two ends with a handsaw. In terms of environmental control, overhanging roofs protect walls against heat gain and rain while creating shaded internal spaces. The elevation of the roof surface above trusses increases air circulation.

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Originally published in: Nolan Lushington, Wolfgang Rudorf, Liliane Wong, Libraries: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2016.