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Table of Contents:Example of a Village Basic Education Centre.................................................... 2

Presentation........................................................................................................ 3

Africa:Gambia, Guinea .......................................................................................... 4

Latin America and the Caribbean:

Argentina and Dominica ............................................................................. 5

Venezuela .................................................................................................... 6

Asia:Afghanistan:................................................................................................ 8

Temporary Facilities................................................................................... 8

Village Basic Education Centres Project.................................................... 9

Bhutan, Thailand ........................................................................................11

Furniture ....................................................................................................12

Arab States:Qatar ...........................................................................................................12

Mauntania, Sudan .......................................................................................13

North America:U.S.A...........................................................................................................14

Publications and Events ....................................................................................15

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Presentation of Newsletter No. 3

The Educational Architecture Units of UNESCO present inthis issue projects of the 1990/1991 period. These projectshave been realized in the light of "Education For All" andshow the efforts undertaken by the Educational ArchitectureUnits of UNESCO to design and build a physical environ-ment in accordance with the ideas declared at the WorldConference on Basic Education For All in Jomtien, Thailand,in March 1990. This Conference was organized by an inter-agency commission (UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and theWorld Bank) and brought together experts of UN agenciesand NGOs.

The Educational Architecture Units of UNESCO play acrucial role in the promotion of Basic Education For All, bydeveloping Village Basic Education Centres in variousregions. These VBECs are not only a place for communityparticipation but are also the result of inter-agency coope-ration in the fields of education, health and skills training.

Besides projects for basic education this Newsletter pre-sents educational buildings for primary and secondary educa-tion and educational furniture design and gives you an over-view on activities in the field of educational architecture.

To the reader:

We would very much appreciate your suggestions on what youwould like to see in the next issues. Your views, ideas,news....are most welcome, particularly contributions/articles onyour own working experiences and problems. We will devoteone page just for this purpose. Please help us fill it in!

BUILDING BASIC EDUCATION

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At present Gambia's educational systemof education and training is undergoingmajor reforms. The GambianGovernment therefore signed an agree-ment with UNESCO for assistance toboth educational planning and schoolconstruction in order to improve prima-ry education and educational planning.

In different parts of the country nineprimary schools are under constructionas well as a Book Production andMaterial Resource Unit, includingoffices, printing facilities and graphicworkshops. UNESCO's Regional Officein Dakar is carrying out the monitoringand the technical supervision.

Prototype primaryschools in rural GUINEA:

In collaboration with the nationalschool construction service of Guinea,UNESCO Dakar, with financing fromIDA through a national project loan,constructed prototype primary schoolsin four different rural settings.

The aim of this project was not only toprovide a sample of functional facili-ties, but also to test the abilities of localartisans to construct a school building atlow cost

Results of this research are being uti-lized for normsetting in the frameworkof the "Structural Readjustment of theEducation Sector in Guinea".

Upon completion of this project adocument was published jointly byUNESCO Dakar and the GuineanMinistry of Education:

"The final Report of the PrototypeConstruction Project".

This document is available uponrequest

UNESCO/African Development Bank (ADB) Education Project GAMBIA:

For all complementary information, please contact:The UNESCO Regional Office in DakarB.P. 3311 Dakar, Sénégal - fax: 23 83 93

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AFRICA

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DOMINICA

Final Thesis by Bernhard RitschelTechnical Vocational Training Centre forPortsmouth, Dominica

On the basis of a project for a Technical Vocational TrainingCentre in Portsmouth, Dominica, this thesis deals withaspects of: - school design in developing countries; - school buildings in the cultural and architectural environ-ment of a country; - the design of a school building and its social status - research on user needs with the help of questionnaires.

This work is an excellent example of serious educationalbuildings planning in the environment of developing coun-tries with emphasis on architectural design and showing aprofound knowledge of socio-cultural circumstances andtheir influence on educational space.

For further information please contact :Direccion General de Planeamiento Educativo Ministerio de Cultura y Educacion Pizzurno 9351020Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA:

Study for a new infrastructurefor secondary schools in Argentina

A study undertaken by the Ministry of Culture and Educationwith UNESCO's technical assistance presents different peda-gogical and didactical aspects of education and their influenceon architectural space. The study includes guidelines for archi-tectural programming, a basic hypothesis for architectural pro-gramming and a proposal for computer-assisted architecturalprogramming, as well as the formation of a new organization.The presentation of basic space units leads to a final conclusionand recommendations.

Authors of the study:Ms Maria Isabel Alvarez (curriculum)Ms Christina Dieguez (educational planning)Mr Miguel Cangiano (UNESCO architect)

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

VENEZUELA:

Pilot project of a Community EducationCentre built in Guayana City withUNESCO's technical assistance sup-port. The project was constructed, usinglocal materials and techniques, with theactive participation of students of atechnical school located near the site.Their participation as labour was part oftheir training.

The Educational Community Centrecaters for the requirements of formaleducation (primary school) as well asfor adult education (skills training in theworkshops and literacy courses in class-rooms). It also serves as a culturalcentre to meet the needs of a humansettlement of approximately 1,000families. The project was published byUNESCO under the title"Construcciones Escolares Gestionadascon Participacion Comunitaria en ZonasSub-urbanas de Venezuela".

For further information please contact:Mr Eduardo MillànAv. Venezuela Edif FronteraEl Rosal Caracas 1060Venezuela

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LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Xth International UNESCO/UIASeminar on Management andMaintenance of Educational Spaces inRural or Periurban Areas, 8 -12 April1991 Caracas, Venezuela.

UIA Working Group"Educational and Cultural Spaces"Objectives of the seminarManagement and maintenance of edu-cational spaces, although extremelyimportant, are very often neglected dueto lack of sufficient funding. In manycountries the budget allocated formaintenance is so small that it has noimpact. This problem occurs practical-ly in all urban and non-urban areas, butit takes a particular form in the case ofthe rural and periurban areas. Two fac-tors are of importance in these twoareas, a technical and a social, whichmake the problems of maintenancemore complex. The main objective ofthe seminar was to raise the awarenessof the participants as well as the coun-tries they represented.Some of the specific points of the semi-nar were:- Presentation of a study on evaluationof maintenance manuals (Venezuela)- Presentation of recent studies invarious countries;- Presentation of case studies in variouscountries;- Discussion of policy, programmefinancing, organisational structure andcommunity participation;- Formulation of recommendation.

The following countries participated inthe seminar:

A rgentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba,Finland, France, Greece, Morocco,Nepal, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,Sweden, U.S.A, Venezuela.

Maintenance

When everything is fineNo-one remembers about maintenance

When something goes wrongThey say it doesn't exist

When it is a question of expenseThey say it's not necessary

But when there is really no maintenanceeveryone agrees that there should be some.

Considerations and recommendations:

The Foundation of Educational Buildings and Furnishing (FEDE) in Venezuela is theorganization responsible for maintenance of educational facilities at the nationallevel. It started in 1978 with the creation of "Committees of Maintenance" at severallevels, and continued to upgrade its programme according to its experience. In 1989FEDE published a maintenance manual with the collaboration of UNESCO.Maintenance has to be considered as a cultural phenomenon and it is the task of thegovernment to promote the idea of maintenance at all levels on the basis of a globalconcept. The building design therefore has to meet the needs, and planned materialsand techniques have to be chosen according to the expected lifetime of a building.

Maintenance starts the moment a building is in its best condition. A global plan ofmaintenance involves two phases, firstly the planning and secondly the operation.The quality of the architectural design already has a major influence on future main-tenance. Participation of the community in the planning and construction phase ofeducational buildings creates awareness among the future users of the necessity formaintenance and encourages them to take responsibility for "their" educational buil-ding and facilities. It is the governments' task not only to create educational com-mittees concerned with maintenance at different levels, but also to promote publicawareness in the area and offer training courses for administrators, teachers andusers. Emphasis has to be put on decentralisation, so that decisions can be taken withfull responsibility at all levels. This will require adequate training at all levels.

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LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

AFGHANISTAN:

UNOCA/UNESCO's project on “ Basic Education Services for A f g h a n i s t a n ”

location. The tent is equipped with aroom-divider, squatting desks and edu-cational material, both for teachers andstudents. The room-divider containingblackboard, pin-up board, book shelvesand storage for educational material,divides the tent into two different edu-cational spaces. Afghan students tradi-tionally sit on the floor and the squat-ting desks provided can be used as a litt-le writing table, bench, platform orbook shelf. Both the room-divider andthe squatting desk are expected to beproduced in the workshops of theVillage Basic Education Centres inAfghanistan.

Village Basic Education Centre:

A typical VBEC includes three class-rooms for children, a multi-p u r p o s ereading room where literacy can betaught to adults and young people, twoor three workshops for skills training

for girls and women and for men, oneroom for day-care centre, a teacher'shouse, a well and toilets, areas for poul-try raising and vegetable growing andspace for leisure activities.

The services required are not limitedto the teaching of reading, writing andarithmetic to school-age children, butinclude educational programmes whichreach all members of the communityregardless of age and sex.

Temporary educational shelter:

The idea of using a tent as temporaryeducational shelter emerged to satisfythe need for educational space in acountry devastated by war. It could beeasily established and developed into amore complete and permanent educa-tional facility if peace conditions wouldso permit or, alternatively be rapidlyremoved and transferred to another

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ASIA

Village Basic Education Centres (VBECs) in Afghanistan:

In 1989 UNESCO signed contractswith three different Afghan NGOs topromote the idea of Basic EducationFor All and to build Village BasicEducation Centres in the south and eastof Afghanistan. Two VBECs were builtin Wardak province, one in Ghazni pro-vince and one in Farah province. T h edesign for additional VBECs was pre-pared by UNESCO architects in theproject office in Quetta, Pakistan, to bebuilt in Afghanistan with extensivecommunity participation. The tempora-ry tent school in this regard is seen asthe start of an educational process.UNESCO provides the communitywith an initial temporary educationalspace while the community contributeslocal labour for the construction of awell and the boundary wall and pro-vides a teacher. After this commitmentby the community, UNESCO will pro-vide as a second step a "constructionkit", consisting of doors, windows androofing material to build a three-c l a s s-room school, workshops for skills trai-ning health centre, day care, teacheraccommodation and latrine. The finallayout of such a VBEC will be designedtogether with the community accordingto their needs. The UNESCO BasicEducation A d v i s e r, together with theassistance of Afghan NGOs, providestraining in literacy techniques, adult

learning and community mobilizationand develops reading materials. Boththe temporary tent school and theVBECs are provided with teacher andstudent kits.

UNESCO provided assistance to thefollowing provinces: Farah in the westof the country, Kandahar, Ghazni,Logar Wardak and Paktika in the southand east and Kabul.

VBEC Wa r d a k :NGO: Engineering Services for Afghanistan, Shash Qala and Guli Khel Villages, Both centres have been built with stone walls by local labour. Doors and windows wereproduced by ESAR and shipped to the construction site.

VBEC Ghazni: NGO: Khorasan's Assistance Group, Anguri Village, Jaghori District, A pre-war primary school, heavily damaged during the war, was completely refurbished andupgraded to a Village Basic Education Centre. Too many students are already enrolled in thenew school. The VBEC shortly before completion.

VBEC Farah: NGO: Farah Reconstruction Foundation,Alakini Village, Jowin District, The boundary wall receives an additionallayer.

At the same time three primary schools inKabul were refurbished and, as soon as thesituation allows access to all parts ofAfghanistan, UNESCO will expand its edu-cational assistance and the promotion ofBasic Education For All.

For further information contact:UNESCO Project Office QuettaP.O.Box 317Quetta, PAKISTANTel/Fax 92-81-73266

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ASIA

ASIA

BHUTAN:

Prefabrication process fortraditional windows, doors andpanels for educational buildings:

Using the prefabrication concept, win-dows, doors and panels are factory-produced and ready for instalmentupon arrival on the site. Details havebeen improved regarding wind and rainprotection and, as only profiles andassembly procedures are fixed, thedesigner still has the flexibility tomodify the component sizes to suit hisneeds.

Sherubtse Degree College

In 1985 the Royal Government ofBhutan, with the assistance of UNDP,started to build the first degree collegein Kanglung. The University of Delhiseconded qualified faculty staff, finan-ced by the Colombo Plan. Initially,faculties in Arts, Commerce andScience were opened. Four years laterthe Royal Government asked UNESCOfor assistance to provide services inconnection with the development of acampus master plan for a rational physi-cal development of the College, finan-ced by UNDP. A campus planner archi-tect, a civil engineer and an educationalplanner carried out studies and theimplementation of this project.

Punagongn Primary School:

Financed under an IDAcredit and Swissgrant funds the construction ofPunagongn Primary School was part ofthe first phase of the Primary EducationProject. Standard designs for temperateand tropical types were developed andincluded a substantial amount of inno-vation, both in terms of design andconstruction techniques. The schoolcapacity was designed for 600 studentsin 16 classrooms. Hostels for 60 girlsand 110 boys allow children from remo-te areas to attend school as well.

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WINDOW FRAMES ASSEMBLY

ASIA

National Institute of Education in Samchi:

The Teacher Training Institute atSamchi was established in 1968 tomeet the growing demand for primaryteachers. In 1981 the institute wasupgraded and renamed as NationalInstitute of Education to train seconda-ry schoolteachers. Under funds provi-ded by the Government of Norway andAGFUND, UNESCO has assisted theRoyal Government of Bhutan since1983 in the construction of the mainbuilding, auditorium, library, servicebuilding and hostel and in the improve-ment of the infrastructure.

THAILAND:

Compulsory secondary education isgoing to be introduced in some of theAsian and Pacific countries. With seedmoney provided by AGFUNDThailand developed a small pilotsecondary school in Uthai Thani pro-vince in 1988 as a participant inUNESCO's inter-country project,known as the Development ofEducational Facilities for Asia and thePacific. The Crown Prince of Thailandon the occasion of his 36th birthdaydonated funds to build another sixsecondary schools during the fiscalyear of 1989 and in 1991 the ministryis going to build another 30 schools inremote provinces.

S e c o n d a ry school in Uthai Thani pro v i n c e :

Educational Facilities Maintenance Manual:

Vol.I Management of MaintenanceVol.II Carrying out Maintenance

This two-volume maintenance manualwas prepared by UNESCO's consultantarchitect Ms F. Duggan in collabora-tion with the Department of Educationof the Royal Government of Bhutan, toassist headmasters and staff, but alsostudents, to maintain the educationalfacilities in Bhutan. In a country wherethe demand for new facilities cannot bemet quickly enough, existing schoolfacilities have to be looked after evenmore carefully. The authors of thismanual wish to raise the awareness ofthe need for maintenance both for thosewho manage educational facilities andfor the users. The manuals are therefo-re illustrated with many drawings foreasy understanding, along with a veryclear and detailed text.

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FURNITURE

Technical assistance in designing furni-ture is often requested by MemberStates in Asia and the Pacific. Althoughfurniture is one of the most expensiveand important components of educa-tion, it is a very often neglected andinadequately informed field. With thehelp of UNESCO, Bangladesh, Bhutanand Maldives have developed schoolfurniture of their own, solving their par-ticular problems such as those causedby flooding, remote mountainous loca-tion or salinity near the sea.

University of Qatar:

The University of Qatar comprises sixfaculties, namely, administrativesciences and economics, engineering,humanities, Islamic studies and scien-ce. Since the early seventies UNESCOhas assisted the university in upgra-ding its services and facilities. In1984/1985 the university moved to anew campus. In the present phase ofUNESCO's assistance, a laboratoryequipment specialist and an architectspecialist in interior design of educa-tional facilities were recruited. T h edrawing shows the proposed layout ofthe previous men's library building tobe converted into staff off i c e s .

ARAB STATES

Other developments in the Asian region:Nepal, school furniture for the Sawal BahalSweeper Community School, Kathmandu.Design: Niels Axel; architect: DanishVolunteer Service.

Bangladesh, school furniturein flooded area.

Bhutan, school furniturefor new curriculum.

Maldives, secondary school furniture

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FURNITURE

ARAB STATES

Feasibility study on the developmentof low-cost educational buildingsand facilities in six Arab countries,financed by AFESD and AGFUND:

The main objective was to developtechniques for the construction of low-cost educational buildings and facilitiesin the six least-developed Arab coun-tries by making greater use of locallabour and of locally available buildingmaterial and by adopting appropriatetechnologies in line with the specificneeds and possibilities of the country.

Prototype primary schools realized with UNESCO assistance in Mauritania:

The UNESCO architects in Dakar, withthe Mauritanian school building unit,developed two prototypes of primaryclassrooms. Firstly two classroomswere constructed at Nouakchott to test

the possibilities of using gypsum(locally extracted and processed) asbuilding material. Secondly a set ofsix classrooms was built at Diaguili, al a rge river front village. The second

proto-type, inspired by the building sys-tem for the Bakel project, was develo-ped to test the possibility of co-finan-cing between a local community and acentral source.

Prototype primary school realized with UNESCO assistance in Sudan:

Construction of a primary school in El Haj Yousif (KhartoumSuburb) and technical supervision in close association withthe National Building and Road Research Institute (NBRR).

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State-of-the-art educational buildings and furniturein the U.S.A:

A slide/tape audiovisual was preparedby Burr Lawrence Rising & BatesArchitects, member of the Committeeon Architecture for Education, theAmerican Institute of Architects and theAmerican Association of SchoolAdministrators, under a contract withthe Educational Architecture Unit ofUNESCO.

The audiovisual presents current p r a c-tices and the trends in educational buil-dings design in the United States.Specific projects, kindergarten through12th grade, college and universitywork, along with examples of specialdesign features, are identified and the

USA

name of the school, client, location, andarchitect, along with brief comments ofeach facility, are given.

For more information, please contact:Burr Lawrance Rising &Bates Architects P.S.Architecture, Planning & Interiors1111 Fawselt, Suite 201Tacoma, Washigton 98402-2012

PUBLICATIONS AND EVENTS

Mexico: Exhibition of Architecture,1-12 July 1991"The Education of Man through hisArchitecture" was the second architecturalexhibition presented by UNESCO'sEducational Sector in Paris. The completeexhibit entitled "Arquitectura Mexico" wasprepared by the Mexican Institute ofArchitects, the Mexican Ministry of UrbanDevelopment and Ecology, and the Faculty ofArchitecture of the UNAM, Mexico'sAutonomous National University. Originally,the exhibition consisted of 200 posters out ofwhich 60 were selected for thé display atUNESCO Headquarters to illustrate how archi-tecture interrelates educationally with societyin the past arid present, in the present, in termsof spatial, volumetric and functional aspects oftoday's architecture and, in the past, throughunderstanding of the past, which again contri-butes to the new contemporary architecturalforms, expression of an enriched awareness.

Cyclone resistant school buildings for Bangladesh:UNESCO Bangkok and the Bangladesh Ministryof Education have long worked together on theproblem of mitigating the effects of natural disas-ters on education. This document summarizes theresults of four in-country training courses on howto design schools to resist the strong winds thatare so prevalent in the country.

The training was conducted by Kevin J. Macks,architect from Australia, who is a specialist in thisfield, under UNESCO's Educational BuildingsProgramme, with emphasis on making schoolssafe from damage by natural disasters.

We welcome relevant information from readersabout recent and forthcoming publications as wellas news and events which will go into this newsand events section.

Industrial ArchitectureCompetition 1991: The BMW Foundat with the French Ministry ofEquipment, Housing, Transport and Spaces andUNESCO with FIDEPS (InternationalAssociation for the Promotion of Physical andCultural Activities, ASC), organized an architec-ture competition for students of French architec-ture schools. The students were asked to presenta concept for a low cost multipurpose sport faci-lity for Third World countries. The first prizewent to a design which proposed to solve thelarge span with a cable structure with roofingmade of textile, for a Sahelian-zone sports hall,by Frédéric Agnesa, Humbert David and PierreRotival from the Ecole d'architecture de Lyon.The jury gave the second prize to a mud-bricksports complex for Niamey, Niger, submitted bystudents of the Ecole d'architecture de Versaillesand the third prize to the students of the Ecoled'architecture de Paris-Belleville.

Prof. Anton Schweighofer, Architect,Vienna, Austria:Exhibition, 3-12 April.l991The first architecture exhibition presentcd byUNESC'O's Education Sector in Paris showedlhe work of Prof. Anton Schweighofer, whohas been Professor of Building and Design atthe Technical University Vienna since 1977.His work includes a variety of different typesof buildings, many of them directly related toeducation: kindergartens, schools, universities,institutions for the handicapped, orphanage,houses for nurses, etc. His Children's Vi l l a g e sin India and the "Children's City" in Vienna areof particular relevance. The Exhibition waso rganized by the Educational Architecture Unitin collaboration with the PermanentDelegation of Austria to UNESCO.

UIAMeeting, Stockholm: 27-31 August 1991:The International Union of Architects, Group "Educational and Cultural Spaces", met inStockholm to discuss "Interior Design in School and Cultural Buildings under the followinga s p e c t s :- The overall impression of interior design and its influence on education;- School fumiture, such as desks, chairs, cupboards, blackboards and equipment, especially regarding function, ergonomics, aesthetics, material, surface layer, coloring; - Durability and life cycle of interior fittings related to the demand for renewal, economy andm a i n t e n a n c e ;- Module co-ordination standardization and flexibility of interior fittings; - Interior design for refurbishment of school buildings.

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