All-round School was designed as a resource for the local community, one that provides an enduring and inspiring learning environment, and in its deployment of low-cost, adaptable construction, aspires to effect lasting change for the social and economic health of Marsassoum, Senegal.
The school presents a soft and inclusive face to the community, with pockets of landscaping and integrated seating forming a vibrant active frontage. Accessed from the south, the sheltered entrance colonnade leads to a shared community water collection hall, a reference to the vernacular impluvium houses of the Casamance region.
Organised around an existing tree, school rooms are accessed from the main courtyard, with school offices providing secure access. The ground recess of the yard acts as an amphitheatre creating space for events, gatherings, dining, play and drainage points that lead to an underground storage tank. A metal sheet roof rises above teaching spaces to allow for natural ventilation whilst shading the entire site and maximising water collection.
Non-load bearing walls of adobe bricks define spaces. An interlocking, double layered stacking system improves their endurance and stability whilst allowing single layers to peel away for the creation of either internal or external benches. There are only two brick types; a larger structural brick that alternates with a spacer brick that can be optionally removed to provide perforations for ventilation and light.
The All-round School aims to demonstrate that low-cost materials and simple assembly does not necessarily mean insipid architecture but can instead generate complexity, intricacy and delight. The school not only provides new learning spaces, but also a place of safety, possibility, inspiration and fun; a building Marsassoum can be proud of, a place of all-round opportunity.