Architecture

Building Tomorrow Academy
Location: Wakiso and Kiboga Districts, Uganda
Design Firm: Gifford LLP, London, United Kingdom
Buildings Sustainability Team: Chris Soley, Hayley Maxwell, and Farah Naz
Structural Engineers: Jessica Robinson and Edward Crammond

About Building Tomorrow:

Building Tomorrow is an international social-profit organization encouraging philanthropy among young people by raising awareness and funds to build and support educational infrastructure projects for vulnerable children in sub-Saharan Africa. Building Tomorrow partners with educational institutions in the US for fund-raising and collaborating on building projects.

Architect's Statement:

We proposed a simple design, easily replicable and capable of being built by the local community in a short period of time. The classroom is optimized for flexibility and for use as a repeatable building block in a larger school. The classroom blends vernacular Ugandan architecture with innovative techniques to provide a comfortable, stimulating and usable environment. The design is enhanced by innovative features such as a solar roof passive ventilation system, and a hybrid brick and daub building envelope that provides low cost low carbon thermal mass, with integrated seating and planting. The school building will be constructed from locally available materials and recycled objects, and built using local skills.

Sustainability is the balance of the social, the economic, and the environmental. We have enhanced a simple form with features that optimize this sustainability for a rural Ugandan classroom and can readily be applied to future designs.

Learn More: A Sustainable Community Classroom for Uganda