Excerpt: Grow Your School is an architectural project designed by Lucila Aguilar Arquitectos in Mexico City. This project seeks to promote the potential of the children of the community and also to generate a sense of union among the inhabitants of the area who actively participated in the entire process.
Project Description
[Text as submiited by architect] Grow your School is a project that was made in order to improve the conditions of a school in the Unión Mexicana community in Tuzantán, Chiapas. After making a recognition of the community and the facilities that already existed in the school, several meetings were held with members of the community where we explained to them what the advantages of using bamboo in construction are and little by little they started trusting that this was the best material to build the school. Finally, a project was carried out that took up pre-existing elements mixed with new elements.
The entire roof was replaced by a bamboo roof, thus generating much more spacious and ventilated spaces, new windows were placed and part of the furniture was replaced, mosquito nets were placed and repairs were made to the facilities and some of the existing elements. In addition, another bamboo roof was built in the outdoor area, so that it could be used as a place for the kids to have lunch in and for different outdoor activities, repairs were made to the basketball court and a living fence was planted around the school.
For the realization of this project, the participation of community volunteers was fundamental, since they were the ones who carried out many of the construction works for the school, in addition to integrating the children in the rehabilitation activities through painting a mural on one of the facades.
This project seeks to promote the potential of the children of the community and also to generate a sense of union among the inhabitants of the area who actively participated in the entire process, from planning to construction, in addition to educating towards the use of bamboo as a practical, resistant and sustainable material.
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