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Sustainable One-Room School
Sustainable school for rural space with hot & dry climate of Iran.
About the School
The design of this school was initiated years ago (2018) for highly deprived areas in eastern Iran, in the province of Baluchistan. It's a mountainous region, dry, and truly hot! While we contemplate advancements in AI, they still lack the most basic necessities of life - things we don't even think about anymore. It's unbelievable!
I traveled to these areas for a few days and met with the children. What they have now as a "school" is essentially nothing more than a fabric or straw tent; a place I couldn't endure for more than one hour!
Deprivation in these areas is very high. Children sometimes have to walk for an hour and a half through impassable rocky paths from behind a mountain to get to a place called „school“! Because there's no school bus or road! I talked to them. I talked to their fathers. But we couldn't solve all the problems. However, as architects, we were able to at least consider the topic of „an appropriate schools".
These areas don't have piped water, electricity, or sewage. So the school couldn't have air conditioning, a fan, or any other e-cooler. Because there's no electricity! Solar panels weren't practical because they didn't last more than two hours and disappeared. Air ducts under the building were expensive! We returned to the architectural traditions of that region and found a very interesting system in ancient texts that was actually an interesting way to create cooling and natural ventilation in the building called "Khar-khaneh," which was also widely used in Afghanistan. We used it with a solar chimney system, and the analyses showed that it works well. It was very important for us that the region accepts this architecture. Feel connected. So we worked on many patterns of regional architecture and designed a pattern that is scalable and inspiring for the people of the region. And they can easily implement it.
The 6 primary school level run at the same time in this class. So there are 6 individual zones for each level (4 children per zone). The type of education in these classes is inspired by Montessori education and there's no sign of formal desks and chairs! The furniture is designed to be flexible in arrangement, so families can hold village meetings and learning sessions after school time, as a space for mothers to gather, for council meetings, or Quran classes.
This open-plan school is designed for extremely hot-dry climate, based on 8 core principles:
⦿ Local climate
⦿ Local culture
⦿ User requirements
⦿ Use of local material
⦿ Ease of construction
⦿ Capacity to expand
⦿ Easy to maintain
⦿ Energy efficiency
Architect in charge:
• Salman Zangeneh
Team members:
• Alireza Ghandehari (Architect)
• Saeid Sheikhi (Details & Material Engineer)
• Ameneh Timajchi (Energy Analyst & Sustainable Designer)
• Farhad Rahmanian (Structure Engineer)
• Rouzbeh Montazeri (Mechanical & Electrical Engineer)
• Mohamad Amin Aqa Qolizadeh (CG & Rendering)
Design Concept
Today’s schools must undergo a redefinition...
They can no longer serve merely as "places of study." Instead, they must become spaces where children can learn life skills.
The roles that this classroom in this area can fulfill
Educational spaces, especially in such areas, can and should serve functions far beyond that of a classroom. As the primary locus of learning, schools hold both symbolic significance and play crucial social roles in communities where the role of education remains weak. Socially, they serve as connectors across various social layers, functioning beyond instructional hours as hubs for meetings, village gatherings, women's education, and youth skill-building. They can serve as regional libraries and, in essence, centers for meeting and learning. Symbolically, they are also of great importance, akin to the architecture of religious spaces; educational buildings in these areas can always serve as models and values. A place that serves as both a meeting point for people and education will undoubtedly be significant symbolically as well.
