An insulated ceiling void with openings helps produce a ‘solar chimney’ effect.
C s ° h
5
t
Warmest month
Coldest month
°C kg/kg mm
Min
5.0 0.004 156.0
Max
31.2 0.018 663.0
Cold stress
Comfortable
Hot stress
Climate and weather data for Kekamega in Kenya, which is at a similar altitude to the school’s location in Uganda.
>
L shape, with the main space and acts as secure storage for books or as office space. Spatial flexibility was introduced with space dividers made of tin and bamboo, or with curtains that turn the large classroom into smaller group rooms. The doors are painted with blackboard paint so they can double as educational apparatus and act as a display area for children’s artwork. Alcoves are formed by the window recesses, and structural piers contain shelving made out of small pieces of plyboard to store books and artwork.
Gifford has been developing a design for the school in recent months. Two classrooms are currently being constructed.
Materials
New public buildings in Uganda are typically made from wood-fired brick walls or concrete blocks with tin roofs. These are favoured over the traditional construction of wattle and daub with a thatched roof because of the former’s longer life and lower maintenance. However, they have poor thermal performance, and both types of building have significant carbon footprints. The walls of the Ugandan classroom are interlocking
stabilised soil bricks (ISSB) – compressed earth blocks stabilised with cement and an interlocking form that reduces the requirement for mortar. These are championed by UN Habitat, (the United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and the Good Earth Trust, and save money and carbon over the wood-fired bricks and concrete blocks. (UN Habitat promotes socially and environmentally
sustainable towns and cities, while the Good Earth Trust is a charity that encourages the creation of decent homes, proper sanitation and clean water.) Thermally massive buildings stay much cooler than
A model of the classroom currently under construction.
48
CIBSE Journal April 2010
the thin-walled brick buildings, but increasing the structure beyond what is necessary is environmentally and economically unacceptable. So the envelope is a hybrid of structural ISSB bricks and added thermal mass from a thick internal adobe render that can be made at little cost.
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Ewa Chrzanowska
Gifford
IES VE-Gaia
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