Baan Nhongbua school is one of the affected school, damaged from the earthquake occurred on 5 May 2014 in Pahn district, Chiangrai. The unpredictable disaster caused a huge damage to the classroom buildings.

Project description by Jun Sekino

Design for Disaster team formed up an emergency team of 9 Architects in Thailand participating to design and build 9 new schools that was affected from the earthquake. The main conditions are must be easy to build, economical and earthquake resistant.

According to the main conditions, we propose to design a skeleton steel structure for flexibility. This unrigid structure can absorb the vibration when an earthquake comes. It is also easy and quick to build for local builders.

For the walling material is assembled from modular system of cement wood board which is easy to buy and easy to use. Even the left pieces of the cement wood board can be used for the built in wall shelves as well. We take as much benefit from every material as we can to decrease waste.

However, the most essential idea is to create a developable design for the real user, the children and the teachers. In the future they are able to modify their own function as they want. For an example, they can merge two classrooms into one by removing to partition between two classes or using local material such as bamboo to renovate the building skin by their own.

Link to original source: METALOCUS

Photography © Spaceshift Studio