Designing a School in Africa- Part 1

It's rare to see a girl doing her internship also participating in competitions. For a lot of architecture students in India, internships are the first away-from-home experience and that can be stressful for a lot of reasons. But my first such experience came a long time ago, and now, coming to an unfamiliar environment isn't quite unfamiliar anymore. Also, after eight years, I returned to Delhi for my internship, and even though I found the city to be quite different this time around, I was also more at home than my classmates. I discovered I had enough time to work and cook and clean and participate in a couple of competitions.

The first one was IGBC Design Competion, for a theme to design GREEN TRANSIT SHELTERS FOR CONSTRUCTION SHELTERS. Our team lost, but that's okay because this was my first competition, and my first experience designing something with joy. Before submission, I was happy with my work, and the truth is that it helped me learn a lot. Sometimes, I believe that the fear of being judged at vivas keeps us from taking risks with our designs. When that fear is gone, we're all capable of more creativity than we know. Was our design perfect? Of course not. Frankly, it sucked. But I learnt a lot nevertheless.

After IGBC was over, I started looking for more competitions. My criteria were i. Nothing too big (like IT Park in Silicon Valley or Human Shelter on the Freaking Moon) and ii. Nothing that has a registration fee. I came across this competition that was open to all and taking place on an international platform. It was to design a school in the tropical savannah climate of Africa. I had just helped out with the design of Takhel Children's Home, and this was something similar. So, I decided this was what would keep me occupied for the next month.

I knew I wouldn't be able to give the competition the time it deserved, because I was just a month away from the deadline. But sometimes it really is more important to just learn.

The countdown has begun. Submission is two weeks away and I am almost finished with my work. Now it's all just photoshop and rendering and presentation.

For the next two weeks, I will be blogging about the process that went into designing the school. I don't know if it will be helpful to anyone but I hope it is. Think of it as my guide to designing a school in Africa. I'll be talking about the research that went into it and my own thought process and ideas. From the study stage, I'll move to the concept stage and then on to the final stage, where I'll show you the sheets I prepared.

Stay tuned for more.