The Sublime and the Ridiculous

To reach the site for the school we travelled north from Gulu to Parabongo and on the way witnessed a massive highway construction project being funded and built by the Chinese.  This new road will connect northern Uganda and the border crossing into South Sudan, bringing with it both opportunities for the farmers to get their produce to new markets and threats that their land will become increasingly desirable to help feed the growing demand from China.

Typical Ugandan school building with
 uninsulated wriggly tin roof

Once in the north of Uganda we visited many schools but they were all built to the same colonial design, resembling pre-war barracks blocks with mud brick or blockwork walls, large, poorly shaded windows and single skin, wriggly tin roofs.  Inside, we witnessed class sizes of up to one hundred and fifty children being squeezed into the hot, humid, airless classrooms which must become totally unbearable when the temperature reaches the maximum 40 degrees centigrade outside.  School design is just one of the many undesirable legacies that the British have left in Uganda; the Pearl of Africa.

Hot, humid, airless interior
with class sizes up
to 150 pupils

What is truly remarkable is the contrast between the colonial “barracks block” school buildings and the beautiful, indigenous homes; composed of clusters of simple, circular huts that appear to grow up out of the landscape; in a similar way to the termite mounds that also share the land.  These homes are made from freely available local materials and use techniques that have been passed down through countless generations.

However, there is far more to the design of these buildings than that!  They are brilliant examples of bio-climatic architectural design, where every element has been carefully refined to create a comfortable, well-tempered environment inside with no energy inputs!  The heavy mud walls stay cool and reduce the internal temperature.  To stop them being heated up by the sun they are shaded by deeply overhanging roofs which also protect the mud walls from the torrential rains that occur twice a year.  They are topped by perfectly formed conical roofs, made from thin, flexible, round wood saplings, lashed together with palm fibre ribbons.

Traditional Ugandan home made of mud walls
with thick, insulating thatched roof with
deep overhanging eaves that shade the wall

The thatch covering this lean and structurally efficient frame, which is light enough to be lifted into place in one piece, forms a deep mat of plant fibres that prevents rain entering the interior.  This deep roof covering contains pockets of air that provide insulation, preventing the heat from the equatorial sun entering the interior; working in combination with the thermally massive walls to maintain a comfortable, well-tempered environment!
 

Cool dark interior with mud stool and
passive, evaporative water cooler 

Inside these perfectly formed, highly sustainable dwellings the furniture is also made from the earth; with stools, tables, beds and shelving units all exquisitely crafted from mud and adding to the total thermal mass to help regulate interior temperatures.  There is a seamless relationship between the fabric and furnishings that create a simple elegant domestic environment that is firm and full of  delight!

Food processor (right) and stove (left)
 both made from the earth of the site

Even domestic appliances like stoves and grain grinders are made from mud and stone and are seamlessly integrated into the walls and floor so that everything displays its relationship with the earth from which it is made.  These truly beautiful spaces reminded me of the paintings of interiors by Dutch Masters, sharing a warm, earthy darkness; providing a calming and restful counterpoint to the hot, bright, saturated colour outside.

Built-in adobe storage unit

The vision for the school we are going to help the community to build is to work with the farmers to build the school themselves so that the economic opportunities created by the construction process directly benefit the local community.  We want it to be as comfortable, elegant and sustainable as their homes and be able to be built and maintained by them.  We want to help them create a new exemplar for Ugandan school design that other communities will want to replicate.  Ultimately, we want to help them to avoid the mistakes that we have made in the so called developed world and in so doing help us to see how we can develop our own new sustainable architecture by rediscovering the lessons of our bio-climatic, vernacular.

Ultimately, I believe that it is essential that we return to designing buildings which are directly shaped by their climate and made from locally available and plentiful materials if we are to meet our needs in a sustainable manner; weather that is in Uganda or Britain.  To help us to realise this dream please donate to Pop-up Foundation so that we can commence the realisation of the vision!

Uganda Balanced on a Knife Edge

A beautiful organic farm
 in Northern Uganda

Having recently returned from Uganda I am trying to readjust to life in London.  In the week that I spent there with Alison Hall from Pop-Up Foundation we packed in a lot.  She was keen to show me a number of schools in the country so that I could understand more about the challenges that we would need to overcome in building our school.  I was keen to meet the farmers who are our clients for the project and to explore the materials and techniques that they use to build their own homes, as our project is going to be self-built by them for their community and so that they retain the majority of the value that the construction process will create.

What I was not prepared for was the shocking stories of the people that I met, the reign of terror that they had experienced and the inspirational way they are now rebuilding their shattered lives.  I was vaguely aware of the Lord’s Resistance Army, but had no real understanding of the terror that they perpetrated throughout northern Uganda during their 20 year assault on the people of the region.

 

Annette a Child Mother and
aspiring national team goalie

We met a group of child mothers, all of whom gave birth under the age of thirteen, following abduction and rape by the rebels.  One young woman, called Annette, told her own personal horror story of how she was forced to dance on her dead mother’s body before being made to carry her severed head.  Today, after years of help and support by her community she is the statuesque goal keeper in her local football team and has been spotted as a potential star of the future, aspiring to playing in Uganda’s national side.

For me the people that left the strongest impression were a group of farmers who were all HIV Positive, many as a result of sexual violence inflicted during the conflict.  Working together they have rebuilt their burned out homes, replanted their staple crops and are now expecting their first coffee harvest, from seedlings provided by Seeds for Development, planted three years ago.  They were happy and healthy and provided a shining beacon of hope for other suffers of this dreadful disease along with a fantastic demonstration of the ability of the human spirit to overcome outrageous adversity.

The truly inspiring
 happy and healthy
 HIV positive farmers
collective

In many ways northern Uganda is balanced on a knife edge and the decisions that its leaders take will define the future for many people.  During the conflict agriculture was almost entirely suspended for twenty years, with farmers forced into government camps for their own protection.  Anyone found outside the camp fences was assumed to be a rebel; and shot.  The legacy of this terrible period is fertile, organic land, rich in nutrients.

Currently, everything that is grown in this region is organic, as fertilizers are too expensive for farmers to consider and yields are naturally high.  With global pressure to increase food production it will not be long before the fertilizer salesmen come knocking on the door with their promises and lies and it is in my opinion essential that markets are available to allow farmers to secure the premium that their organic produce deserves so that they can make informed decisions about their future.

The journey from our southern base in Mokono, a suburban town outside Kampala to Gulu, the location of one of the largest camps in the north, took six hours on roads varying from modern tarmac to rough, red dirt tracks.  On the way we passed a varying landscape that was green and verdant even though it was the end of the dry season.  We experienced sudden torrential showers that turned the wide ditches on either side of the road into turbulent rivers of rust red water.  We also passed the first signs of change, with huge areas of land totally cleared of all trees, shrubs and plants ready to be sown with GMO seeds.  I had not realised that these crops do not provide fertile seeds, so when this change is made it ties farmers into buying more each year.  It would appear that much like the British created mono-cultural plantations of sugar cane and tea during the colonial period, there are now significant pressures to see this form of agri-business become the dominant agricultural model.

Uganda is rightly described as the Pearl of Africa but it is a pearl balanced on a knife edge and must avoid the mistakes that we have made and achieve truly sustainable development that is socially equitable, economically sustainable in the long term and achieved with the minimum impact upon the environment.  It must not be allowed to become the dumping ground for the outdated products of global corporations or be seduced by outmoded short term thinking that is not in the people’s best interests but will bring rich rewards to the powerful few.

Made in Uganda: A Sustainable School

“How would you like to design and build a sustainable school in Uganda”?

Not the sort of question that you expect to be asked at an Awards ceremony; but then the 2Degrees Awards are not your run of the mill event!  The person asking the question was Alison Hall of Seeds for Development and Pop-Up Foundation.  She and Paul Clarke were very happy because they had just picked up their awards for Solution of the Year; I on the other hand was not; as I had not!

 

Beautiful traditional homes
 built from mud, thatch
 and small diameter timber

So we started working with Alison and Paul to design the school to be built on a site in Arugudi Village, Northern Uganda.  From the first discussions it became clear that there was a powerful meeting of minds about how the school should be conceived.  We wanted collectively to create an enduring, local solution that the community could build, maintain and run, using locally sourced and easily available materials and technology.  We wanted to develop and improve upon the existing vernacular architecture, breaking the colonial tradition of breeze block and wriggle tin that dominates most local school design.  We were also keen to avoid too much architecture and wanted to strive to find simple easy and efficient solutions to problems, so that we could provide an adoptable precedent that could be applied by other communities throughout the region. 

It quickly became apparent that one of the biggest challenges would be around water and sanitation.  It has long been recognised that female education is the key to unlocking development, yet currently most girls leave school when they reach puberty due to a lack of basic sanitation.  One of the first actions in making the school will be the sinking of a borehole to provide a supply of water for drinking and personal hygiene.

Human waste is a major health hazard, so we have developed the design of the school around an anaerobic digester that will process this material, from hazardous waste into a series of useful nutrients.  Solids and liquids will be turned into fertiliser, used to grow crops that will provide lunch for children.  The methane gas from the process will be collected and used to cook lunch, removing the need for timber or charcoal for cooking.

The school buildings will all be built by the community and their design has been heavily influenced by the local vernacular tradition of simple circular huts, with “adobe” earth walls and conical thatched roofs.  We believe that it is essential that local, freely available materials are used, so that the environmental footprint of the development is minimal, material costs are virtually eliminated and the skills and knowledge of local people are valued and developed.

However, this philosophical approach presented a significant challenge, since during the recent armed conflict many people were injured or killed when the thatched roofs of their homes were set on fire with them in them!  There is now strong resistance to thatch and we are exploring other alternatives, including exploring the use of fast growing bamboo to form both the roof structure and make bamboo roof tiles, due to its inherent fire resistance.



The conceptual layout of the school is less a plan,
 more an "aunt Sally" to be challenged, questioned and adapted
 by the farming community who we will help to build their own school

To help simplify and speed up the adobe wall construction we are developing a simple hand press that will produce regular shaped and sized mud bricks that can either be dried in the sun or using a parabolic solar oven, that can also be used to cook food once construction is complete.

The classrooms are hexagonal spaces capable of accommodating 50 children each, arranged in clusters of five to allow one teacher to oversee up to 250 children when necessary.  The space enclosed by the classroom cluster will be shaded by a tree to create a cool external shared amenity space, with large over sailing roofs reducing solar gains and providing shelter from monsoon rains.  Light will be provided within the classrooms by plastic water bottle rooflights that refract natural light through water to produce the equivalent of 50W light bulb.

The school site will also include a demonstration home where the community will come to learn about how they can reduce their impact through the adoption of new technologies like solar stoves, improve sanitation by installing simple tip taps so that they can easily wash their hands and learn to make and install water bottle rooflights.

So after nine months of research and development I shall be leaving for Uganda on Sunday.  I have had my jabs, started taking my malaria meds and am feeling both nervous and excited.  It will be my first visit to Africa and I am sure that I will learn a lot in the week that I am there.  One thing is certain, the discipline of designing using local materials and labour will certainly provide valuable learning that we will apply to projects at home.  Just imagine what our economy and buildings would be like if we could only use locally available labour, materials and technologies?