Changqing Primary School

Type: Education
Area: 210 sqm
Location: Mathare slum, Kenya
Stage: Completed

Site in Mathare

Mathare is a collection of slums in Nairobi with a population of approximately 500,000 people; the population of Mathare Valley alone, the oldest of the slums that make up Mathare, is 180,000 people. The dense site generates multiple levels of constraints to our operation by limiting transportation access, complicating local collaboration partnership as well as magnifying infrastructural flaws on the site.

Upgrading the School

The original one-story metal shed on site was managed by Ebenezer Kim Daycare Center and was home to 5 classrooms and 1 office, hosting 146 primary school students with an age range of first grade to sixth grade. The congestion of 146 kids in a 80 square meter site calls for immediate intervention of a better learning environment. However, a mere physical improvement and expansion of the school would not solve the problem that we targeted at: the increasing drop-out rates of slum primary school students of with higher grades.

Re-defining the Problems

The space distribution of the shed, which aimed to max out area for classrooms, failed to match the time distribution that students spend on learning. Due to the shortage of teaching staff, students spend 60% of the time sitting in the classrooms while not being offered classes. This the the time when they could have been taught basic work or artistic skills – the lack of which is the reason why many of them choose to drop out of school.

The change of the existing condition requires re-defining what a slum school is, and to slum students who need basic working skills right after graduation, the primary school needs to be the first step in providing that. Instead of more classrooms, we designed a large, flexible activity space when they are in-between classes, which can also be transformed into a small auditorium, inviting artists, craftsmen, farmers to come and give extra-curriculum classes for the students and even the community.

Design with the Community

In order to fully support our vision, the multi-function room is used as a leverage to engage local artisan groups, non-profits as well as residents in order to generate the social interaction necessary to support the education of kids outside of their normal curriculum. Our collaborator Dream Building Service Association is hosting the first talent show in the community in order to raise awareness in skill development and pitch for more involvement of the slum residents.

Tectonics for the Community

We designed the building out of local bamboo, quarry stones and building blocks, so that materials and construction details create job opportunities to community members, matching their skill levels and resource availability. The goal of the construction project was to create a school for the community and out of the community.