Maw Kwee Schoolbuilding | Gyaw Gyaw

Maw Kwee is a small remote mountain village with a great school. It`s not many migrant schools around, and Maw Kwee is well known for it`s good teachers, so children come from a wide area to learn here. The air-distance to their villages might not be that long, but the actual walking distance, not to mention the situation, make many of them stay at the dormitories for years at the time. Even if the teachers were great, the learning conditions were sparse. Around 100 children, divided in 6 classes, were sharing one big classroom. When asked, we found a new school building for Maw Kwee to be a great project for G`Yaw G`Yaw. It was clear the village needed it. They were also interested in our design and philosophy, and wanted adobe walls. The headmaster and village leader with his team were included through the whole process. Villagers and students were helping out in turns and we invited to a workshop with international contributors for the final design and construction of the adobe walls. Through earlier projects, we have experienced that vertical material meetings including adobe are likely to crack. The walls don`t fall down, but it does not look very good and requires more maintenance. In this case we therefor divided the timber construction and adobe walls into separate freestanding elements. Time will show if it was worth it, but so far it looks good. New school building with 6 classrooms. Roof (plates) resting on timber construction. Adobe walls (local made mud-bricks) on concrete slab in combination with bamboo details for natural light and airflow.