Zaatari village classroom wins architecture award

In the Jordanian village of Zaatari, outside the sprawling Syrian refugee camp of the same name, stands a classroom built of sand-bags that has won a top architecture award for its concept and design.

The structure, designed by non-governmental organisation Emergency Architecture and Human Rights (EAHR), was built by refugees, for refugees.

It was constructed as part of a bigger project, "100 Classrooms and Football Fields", with the goal of bringing education back to a generation of Syrian refugees who have been forced by the war to flee their home communities.

Statistics show that roughly two out of every three refugee children drop out of school, due in part to a shortage of schools in the areas where they live.

A recently published UNICEF assessment shows 38% of Syrian children are not in school, due to factors such as distance, cost, lack of space and bullying.

According to EAHR director Michele Di Marco, the classroom initiative has its roots in the organisation's "5x5" workshop for university architecture students.

Workshop participants learn about five humanitarian cases in five different cultures, Di Marco explained, noting that the approach offers students a worldwide perspective of current problems.

In this case, the students set out to improve the school attendance rate in Zaatari -- Jordan's largest refugee camp.

Inspired by traditional design

When EAHR visited Zaatari in 2014, staff found that most of the problems related to education were outside the camp, rather than inside it.

"That is when we decided to work in Zaatari village with Acting for Change," a local NGO that provides aid to Syrian refugees and low-income Jordanians, Di Marco said.

The classroom's design was inspired by the Great Mosque of Djenné in Mali, a traditional earthen structure, and the vernacular beehive house structures found in Aleppo and Homs in Syria, he explained.

Many of the refugees come from this part of Syria, he noted.

The beehive style was a viable solution for school construction, due to the limited choice of building materials available and the area's harsh environment, which is characterised by hot summers and cold winters, he said.

The building technique used is called Super-Adobe, developed by NASA and endorsed by the UN, after many years of research and development.

It is a form of sand-bag architecture, developed by architect and CalEarth founder Nader Khalili. It does not require high-tensile-strength reinforcements and is simplified so anybody can build.

What distinguishes it, according to Di Marco, is that "it can be built quickly with unskilled labour, and it performs better than tents, cement blocks and corrugated metal sheets, in terms of thermal insulation and cost".

"The design also helps gain four to five degrees in the winter and lowers the temperature by six to seven degrees in the summer, compared to traditional buildings," he said.

Community involved in the process

Some of the Syrian refugees had worked with these materials back in Homs, so they know how to handle them, Di Marco said, adding that they just needed a bit of professional help with the typology and the building technique.

"I used to make the plaster of our house every year. We used mainly soil and water mixed with straw. Straw makes the structure more resistant, especially when it rains," said Um Sultan, a 98-year-old refugee.

With EAHR construction training, refugees will be able to build more of these classrooms for use by local schools, without supervision, Di Marco said.

Community members are involved in the entire process, from the design phase to construction, he said, adding that more classrooms will be built this year in Azraq and Arhaba, and there are plans to expand the project outside Jordan.

"We are looking for funds to build the other classrooms and are open to collaborate with more local and international NGOs to achieve the goal of 100 classrooms," he said.

Project volunteer Abu Sultan, a math teacher, taught in Syria for 25 years.

"Each class takes up to 25 students," he said. "All the teachers are Jordanian and Syrian volunteers, and we follow the Jordanian curriculum in teaching."

Pens, notebooks, desks, chairs and textbooks are supplied by Acting for Change.