The architect designed a school for the village of Aït Benhaddou in Morocco that combines sustainable construction methods with tradition. Her design relies heavily on a local building material – earth.

As one of the three main LafargeHolcim Awards winners for Middle East Africa in 2017, “Weaving and Stamping” automatically qualified as a finalist in the Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018. All 15 finalist project teams were asked to submit an updated and more comprehensive entry that was evaluated by a global jury in March 2018.

View project entry posters – Global Holcim Awards

The results of the global phase of the 5th LafargeHolcim Awards competition were announced on March 28, 2018.

Read full media release – Global LafargeHolcim Awards 2018

Sustainability in building is rapidly gaining significance in the Middle East Africa region – particularly among female professionals and young graduates in architecture and engineering. This was clearly seen at the prize-handover ceremony for the regional Holcim Awards in Nairobi, Kenya. The majority of the 11 prize-winning projects dealt with education and the contemporary promotion of traditional manual skills.

Through its program and the buildings themselves, the project fosters local artisanship. The complex will house a children’s school and an adult training space within a recent expansion of the village of Aït Benhaddou. By means of straightforward architectural forms that follow principles of passive climate control, the expression of the design counters narratives that commend only industrial materials as modern. The project incorporates local rammed earth construction and also uses local wool and cane weaving as screens and canopies to shade the facades and exterior common spaces. The woven screens are produced by local women.

Environmental performance and economic viability

The project responds to the peculiarities of the region: climate and natural environment are our key design parameters. Hence, instead of adapting design solutions to the site, the site itself becomes the solution. It allows us to conceive a bioclimatic model with a small footprint, based on the building’s configuration with respect to natural components, and the use of an efficient local, widely available material: clay. Thinking about sustainability and passive strategies from the early stages of design allowed to achieve not only social and environmental welfare, but also a significant economic benefit. The project’s design ensures an optimal consumption of energy and water, as well as a high thermal comfort. It also allows wider access to renewable energy by making it affordable.