El Jicarito School | knitknot architecture

EL JICARITO SCHOOL is an innovative low-cost school design that brings a community together through collaborative construction methods, using local materials, and creates educative spaces that enhance creativity.

By supporting this project, you will help bring educational infrastructures to a community in need.

THE SITUATION

Nicaragua is one of the countries with less educational resources in Latin America, with hundreds of small communities in need of social and educational infrastructure. The NGO Seeds of Learning has been working in the country for over 25 years, dedicated to enriching the country’s future through an effort focused on improving educational resources.

Seeds of Learning has built over 200 classrooms throughout the country using commercial materials such as concrete blocks and steel roofs. These construction methods, however, involve bringing large amounts of industrialized materials and specialized labor off site, often making it unaffordable for the villages. Also, because of lack of resources, these buildings have very basic designs, frequently inefficient and inadequate for a school.

In their aim to push the limits of their traditional constructions, Seeds of Learning extended a collaboration to our collective group, knitknot architecture, to participate in the design of their next school building in the community “El Jicarito”.

THE COMMUNITY: EL JICARITO

El Jicarito is a tiny village located in the municipality of Tipitapa, north of the country capital, Managua. Is a rural community with 250 residents who mostly work as farmers, and the 27 kids currently don’t have a school. The kids receive classes in a makeshift hut as a temporary solution, since the nearest primary school is a 1.5 kilometers walk, and the road becomes impassable during the rainy season. As a result, many children either do not attend school or drop out before completion of 6th grade.

THE PROJECT:

We have partnered with Seeds of Learning to build a two-classroom school prototype for kindergarten and elementary school students. The school will include two classrooms, a multipurpose space, and a public square/playground. The municipal government will donate part of the land needed to build the school.

The floor will be made of poured colored concrete, the walls of earth-bags and the columns, beams and foundations will be made out of traditional reinforced concrete and steel frame. The school will be available for community meetings, adult education classes and travelling medical brigades, which will benefit the entire community.

The aim of the project is to explore new construction systems that would facilitate a more participatory and sustainable construction for the area. We chose the earth bag system or hyper adobe, and are developing a design that aims for an interactive and collective space of learning for the whole community.

We propose a two-sided concept:

Learning FROM the building
+
Learning IN the building

That is, the school becomes a place to learn, but also a building that can be used as a prototype to push the limits of their current constructions:

• LEARNING FROM THE BUILDING
Construction systems as a learning process for the community

The project proposes the use of materials and building systems that start from those used previously by Seeds Of Learning in other existing buildings (known and accepted by the community) and introduces new systems so that the community begins to get acquainted and learn to work with them.

Thus, the building itself is a process of experimentation and learning for the community, the systems they learn can be applied in other buildings in the near future (housing, warehouses ...)

• LEARNING IN THE BUILDING
The classroom space beyond four walls and a roof

The school as a public space: The school becomes the public square for the community. An open space defined by two of the facades of school that work as a meeting point, event space, playground...

The classrooms are conceived as flexible spaces, in order to stimulate and promote interactive teaching and classes with different formats. The structure and use of materials creates a range from specific classroom spaces and defined according to age groups, to open spaces that add up to the square.

OUR TEAM

DESIGN TEAM:

• Knitknot Architecture [design architect]
www.knitknotarchitecture.com
Knitknot architecture is an international collective of architects, urban planners, artists and thinkers based in London, Los Angeles and New York, that aims to explore new ways to approach the architectural practice in a more open and critical way. We believe architecture goes beyond the built project, and different itineraries such as research, critical writing or development of projects that address social, cultural and economic issues are required to re-conceptualize the role of the architect as social agent.

• Seeds of Learning [local NGO]
www.seedsoflearning.org
Seeds of Learning is an NGO that has been working in Nicaragua for 25 years and has built over 200 classrooms. We believe that education is a universal human right. Each person is entitled to an education that will allow him or her to reach their greatest potential. SOL believes that education is the best way to achieve social and economic justice and alleviate poverty.

• Precision Structural Engineering [structural engineers]
www.structure1.com
US-based structural engineering firm focusing on green design. PSE has an extensive experience in traditional structural engineering services, taking a lead in sustainable commercial and industrial structural engineering, as well as green residential designs.

• Engineers without borders, New York Professional Chapter [consultants]
www.ewbny.org
EWB-USA works to achieve a vision of a world in which all communities have the capacity to meet their basic human needs. This vision is actively pursued by engaging in community-driven development programs through the design and implementation of sustainable engineering projects. The organization is at the forefront of a movement in which university students and skilled engineers, often teaming with public health professionals, educators, business leaders and others, address some of the most prevalent challenges facing the world today, including water purification and delivery, sanitation, transportation and infrastructure projects, and sustainable and renewable energy systems.