Francis Kéré presented his inspiring work at a TED Talk in New York. He knew exactly what he wanted to do when he got his degree in architecture – go home to Gando in Burkina Faso, to help his neighbors reap the benefit of his education. 

A series of events in West Africa celebrating the Global Holcim Awards Gold project, Secondary school with passive ventilation system, by Diébédo Francis Kéré included an enthusiastic reception at the school site in Gando, Burkina Faso as well as a media conference in the capital Ouagadougou and a presentation in Accra, Ghana. More than 3,000 community members including around 1,000 school children, representatives of regional and local authorities, politics, and religion enjoyed a village festival to celebrate the global Holcim Awards gold prize won by the school and to congratulate Diébédo Francis Kéré.

The secondary school in the village of Gando in Burkina Faso was selected to receive the Global Holcim Awards Gold 2012 out of more than 6,000 competition entries from all over the world. Speakers at the prize handover held at the iconic Rolex Learning Center of the EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland included internationally-renowned architect Enrique Norten, EPFL president Patrick Aebischer, and Holcim Chairman Rolf Soiron. The project was praised for its approach to using traditional building materials and technologies that also places great emphasis on actively involving the local population in the construction process.

The secondary school in Gando is a lighthouse project providing an outstanding contribution to the dominant issues on the country’s path to a sustainable future. The jury was unanimously impressed by the school’s beauty and its innovative architectural concept, which combines both modern and vernacular construction methods, as well as by its social and educational impact. Locally-sourced clay is mixed with aggregates and cement to cast walls on-site based on a two-piece formwork.

Although the widely applauded exhibition “Machen!” (German for “do”) featuring six Holcim Awards winning projects by German design teams continues at the Aedes Architekturforum in Berlin until the end of August, the series of podium discussions has now concluded. Architects Francis Kéré (Kéré Architecture Berlin) and Eike Roswag (Ziegert | Roswag | Seiler architekten ingenieure Berlin) fascinated 200 guests with presentations of their two school projects that are under construction in Burkina Faso and Pakistan – both projects use traditional building materials and technologies and place great emphasis on actively involving the local population in the construction process.

The exhibition “MACHEN!” (to make) at the AEDES Network Campus follows the development process of six projects including the Secondary school with passive ventilation system. All six projects are examples of a new, reflective approach to the topic: for a building to be truly sustainable, architects must use their own creative and conceptual skills – where technology is employed not for its own sake, but as a means to a well-executive series of objectives.

Construction of the next phase of the comprehensive project to complete the secondary school is progressing to schedule in mid-2012. This school project in one of the world’s poorest countries aims to provide further education to the inhabitants of a rural area. Gando, with a population of 3000, has no secondary education facilities and lies on the southern plains of Burkina Faso, some 200km from the capital Ouagadougou.

A school project in Gando, Burkina Faso, a multifunctional community center in São Paulo, Brazil, and an urban renewal plan in Berlin, Germany are the winners of the Global Holcim Awards for 2012. These leading sustainable construction projects were selected from 15 finalist submissions by a jury of independent experts led by Enrique Norten. The finalists were the regional Holcim Awards 2011 winning projects that had been selected from more than 6,000 entries in 146 countries.

The projects that received Holcim Awards Gold, Silver, or Bronze in each of the five regions of the world were automatically qualified to compete for the Global Holcim Awards 2012. The more extensive submission on the Secondary school with passive ventilation system for the global phase of the competition can be found here:

Project posters

The winners of the 3rd International Holcim Awards competition for sustainable construction projects and visions from Africa Middle East have been announced at a ceremony in Casablanca. A total of USD 300,000 was presented to ten outstanding projects submitted by architects, planners, engineers and project owners. The winning projects illustrate the broad scope of applying sustainable approaches in construction including school infrastructure, community renewal, urban redevelopment, and energy-efficient design.

The jury commended this project because of its broad approach towards enmeshing discreet sustainable aspects of the program into a comprehensive whole. The Secondary School Gando is constructed by the local community and builds not only a series of structures, but also a sense of identity and enhanced social cohesion. Its “urban design” has the potential to act as an anchor point in the village structure. The project, as one element of a long-term school development, makes use of “high-tech” ideas that are implemented with low-tech means. It intelligently leverages the site’s characteristics and locally-available materials. 

The project aims for the sustainable use of resources to provide natural ventilation without any use of electricity. The natural ventilation system works with low-tech, cost-effective earth-tubes, which is a sustainable, zero-energy passive geothermal solar cooling system. The school will provide graduate students accessibility to further education and therefore enhances the sustainability of the educational opportunities created.