Bahuarwa Primary School / Arch Aid

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Text description provided by the architects.TheBahuarwaPrimary School is located in the village of Bahuarwa, in India's poorest state, Bihar, where children often come from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Scheduled Castes and Tribes. They have limited access to education as public schools often do not function, and private schools, on the other hand, are too expensive. The local NGO, Bahuarwa Foundation, is committed to improving the educational opportunities of this section of society and runs the school built by Arch Aid.The architects and founders of Arch Aid, Isha and Daniel Haselsberger, initiated the construction of the school in collaboration with theBahuarwaFoundation in April 2022. After several weeks of analyzing local building methods, resources and crafts, they built the school in a participatory process with the villagers, operators and craftspeople. The aim was to develop a hybrid structure which combines regenerative and more processed materials, as well as vernacular and new building methods, fulfilling the community's requirements for a contemporary building.The building consists of a high plinth made of locally produced bricks, which protects the rooms from regularly occurring flooding. The structure of the walls, ceiling, and roof is made of bamboo. The interior walls were filled with a mixture of earth and straw, while the exterior walls were given a colorfully painted cement plaster. The interior walls provide cooling, while the exterior walls meet the local aspirations for a durable and modern-looking building. A protruding metal roof protects the building from the monsoon rains. A large air space between the ceiling and the roof counteracts the heat radiation from the metal and, together with the earthen inner walls, ensures a pleasant indoor climate without a need for air conditioning. The lightweight construction results in an earthquake-resistant building, considering the high risk of earthquakes in the region. Solar panels on the roof ensure an independent and uninterrupted power supply.The use of bamboo and earth not only reduced costs and the environmental footprint but also enabled an inclusive construction process and created regional added value. Except for three bamboo experts, all the people involved in the construction came fromBahuarwaand the surrounding area. Many of them are parents or grandparents of the children who now attend the school. After graduating, Isha and Daniel Haselsberger founded the NPO Arch Aid in 2020 to bridge the gap between their different cultural backgrounds and to improve the living conditions of disadvantaged people in India with simple but high-quality architecture.