Last year, Building Tomorrow teamed up with Architecture for Humanity in an attempt to identify a new and improved classroom design for future BT Academies through the 2009 Open Architecture Challenge: Classroom.

The Open Architecture Challenge is an open, international design competition. It is hosted once every two years on the Open Architecture Network to address inequities in the built environment. The competition was open to all and. You did not have to be a registered architect to participate.

the winner

Gifford LLP (London, UK) with their “Sustainable Community Classroom Design”
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their challenge

Entrants in BT’s portion of the competition were challenged to come up with a unique, sustainable design for a “universal classroom space” that utlized local materials available in Uganda, could be easily adapted to varying landscapes and could be constructed by unskilled laborers—all for less than $3,000.

the classroom

While the space needed to be large enough to accommodate desks and chairs for 50 students, it also needed to be able to be adapted for use as an office, library, performance space, etc. The ultimate challenge was to produce a singular classroom that could be used for incremental development of a larger school campus. The prototype needed to be easily replicable and adaptable to varying landscapes/environments throughout Uganda.

previous designs we’ve used

Below are drawings and blueprints of previous designs we’ve used…although please note that the completed academies are not exact replicas.

• Blueprint for Lutisi, Buwasa & Kiyamba
• Plan for Gita
• Sketch for Sentigi & Kyeyitabya