The school in Ghana, built without electricity, has become the winner of the prestigious Inspireli Awards, a successful worldwide network of young architects based in the Czech Republic.

The Inspireli Awards was made for a students of architecture, design and graduates under 35 years of age. Francesco Vittorini and Andrea Tabocchini, 25-year-old architects from Italy, won the main prize in the "realization" category with a school prototype of an economically and ecologically sustainable building in Ghana. School was built in 60 days,  worth € 12,000. Technistone will support young winners with $ 6,000 of TechniStone materials in their next project. "Technistone is the general partner of the Inspireli Awards because believes in investing in young and promising architects and designers who think over time and inspire others. In particular, the company has been trying for over twenty years to produce hardened stone that saves nature from violent interventions in quarries, making it an economically and environmentally sustainable material for future generations, "says Andrea Freislebenová, head of commerce for Technistone, Czech and Slovak Republic.

 

InsideOut is a school prototype built in Yeboahkrom, a rural village in Ghana where the wind had destroyed the only school of the area. To transform the lack of resources in developing countries into the opportunity to propose a sustainable design, the project offers an alternative to standard introverted classrooms and proposes an affordable and easily replicable design that values the local know-how and pushes its limits.

 

InsideOut is a school prototype built in Yeboahkrom, a rural village in Ghana where the wind had destroyed the only school of the area. This non-profit project, designed by Andrea Tabocchini & Francesca Vittorini, won several international awards and was constructed in 60 days with just 12 000 euro, together with the local population and volunteers from 20 different countries.

Since no electricity was available it was built by hand, crafting materials available on site (earth, wood and vegetation), moving by hand 58 000 kg of soil and planing 3km of wood with 2 hand planers.

The lack of resources and the site limitations become the opportunity to propose a sustainable design that merges architecture and landscape.
InsideOut takes inspiration from the many patterns that are present in the site and in the local culture (the textures of the typical kente clothes, the rigid oil palms grid, the vegetable gardens layout...) to propose a flexible scheme that transforms the uninspiring standard classrooms layout into a more engaging sequence of multifunctional spaces with different levels of openness.

The staggered walls of the classrooms are built by compacting the local earth, a light wood structure lifts the roof up, allowing zenithal light into the building, and generates a natural ventilation of the spaces, while the vegetation of the garden becomes the continuation of the porches, increasing the shaded spaces to study outdoor.

The result is a work that blurs the boundary between inside and outside, offering an alternative to standard introverted classrooms and proposing an affordable and easily replicable design that values the local know-how and pushes its limits.

Technical information

To ensure the durability of the structure and to enhance some of the features of the traditional construction techniques, every solution becomes a direct response to real problems/challenges; function and aesthetics merge together.
The lack of resources and the site limitations become the opportunity to propose a sustainable design that merges architecture and landscape: the 40cm wide staggered walls of the classrooms are built by compacting the local earth, a light wood structure lifts the roof up, allowing zenithal light into the building, and generates a natural ventilation of the spaces, while the vegetation of the garden becomes the continuation of the porches, increasing the shaded spaces to study outdoor.

 

https://www.inspireli.com/en/awards/detail/2147505595