Primary School - Aga Khan Award for Architecture
Aga Khan Development Network
 

Primary School

Primary School
 Location: Gando, Burkina Faso (West Africa)
Architect: Francis Diebedo Kéré
Client: Community of Gando Village
Completed: 2001
Site size: 30'000 m²

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Primary School Project Brief

A primary school built cooperatively by a whole village community. Its clay walls are topped with a double roof structure of adobe and tin that blocks the heat of the sun, making the inside up to six degrees cooler than it would be with tin alone. Inspired by this model, two neighbouring villages now have their own new schools, built entirely with their own labour and funded by community members living away from home.

  • Exterior view, with lined up children before classroom

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Workers assembling roof trusses

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Workers resting on shaded patio between classrooms

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Exterior view, with children

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Partial exterior view from south, showing western classroom, with children playing in the school grounds

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • View of shaded patio between the western and central classrooms, with women and girls gathered around blackboard

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • View of test building, erected to test resistance of compressed earth blocks to rain. It is now used as the school kitchen

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Exterior view, front and side elevations

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Partial exterior view from southeast, showing western classroom and patio, with ramps for access to school platform

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • Exterior detail, brick pier and concrete beam at southwest corner, and projecting metal roof raised over steel bar structure

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • View of western patio, looking southwest, with blackboard

    © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet

  • © Özgür Basak Alkan, ArchNet



2004 Award Recipients