the eleventh hour

Studio was a buzz last night. It is quieter this afternoon as everyone's exhausted-ness wears on and caffeine and mcflurry-highs wear off.Everyone is working fiercely to finish boards to be printed and models to be showed. Jen was busy making sure her trees were perfectly preened (though eager first-year UM students appeared to help with that) and Ryne was creating "architecture that was a window for the sky." Niloo was feeling sorry for all of us, exhausted and stuck.

The haze wears on and we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. 9:30 am Monday morning our production will end and presentations will begin.

Amy and Melissa

I am partnered with Amy who is currently beginning her fourth year at UM. She completed her third year of education and did not take a break before continuing to now (most UM students take three years of school, break for work experience, and continue onto their fourth and fifth years.)
Our project is focusing on how we can improve the movement around the site through strengthening, or creating a connection between the existing buildings on the site. At the same time we are looking into how our organization of buildings on the site will take best advantage of air flow and natural ventilation, to ultimately improve the classroom conditions. Our classrooms are proposed as being all new additions, which are arranged along double loaded corridors. However the corridors have been widened to allow for sun and air to enter into the space. The corridor becomes an opportunity of interaction to occur on all of the different levels of the classrooms. Technically we only have two levels, but due to offsets vertically our classrooms are on four split levels.

We are constructing our design for the most part out of bamboo, which through research I have found to be a really incredible material. There are so many applications in which it has precedented use - from merely aesthetic to structural. There are also so many cool, sustainable systems which I have found through some web research which would be incredible to integrate into the project. The initial costs would be nearly the same, less in a few instances, but then the maintenance costs would be minimal. We have no electricity or sewage connections on site, so a generator and sewage solution is essential for our designs. I have looked into biogas and solar collector generators which can generate power from animal or human waste and from the sun. Also there are so many different types of composting pit toilets which could be utilized, as well as rain water harvesting systems. I am having a difficult time not getting carried away with looking into all of it as we not only have a budget, but also a timeline.
The hardest obstacle to overcome as we have been developing the project has been communication. I get excited and speak a bit faster without noticing and Amy will lose track of what I am saying. I have tried to be persistent in asking her questions to get her involved, but I think it overwhelms her and renders her silent. We have spoken on the disconnect over our project and (between us) I am hopeful that we have gotten it resolved and will be able to smoothly get through this last week. Today seemed to go well. It is always a challenge to work with another individual when there are always different ideas about what should be done. In this case it is made even more complicated by the divide in background and language skills. However, I think that it is valuable to learn how to balance work with another.
It is really exciting to work on this Cambodian school project, which in itself is a challenge, and I cannot wait to see how mine and all of the other projects turn out!

- Melissa Barry

Yusup and Eric

Designing this project has required an approach completely different from any project I have worked on previously. Not only is it in a part of the world I have never visited until this summer, but it is a proposal that has the possibility of being built. This opportunity has generated an incredible amount of excitement, though admittedly some hesitation because it is the first time each of our design decisions could become a reality.

In order to give the school a sense of identity and blur the lines between interior and exterior space my partner, Yusup, and I are proposing to create a threshold ifor the school by elevating the program across the middle of the site, dividing it into public and private zones. Additionally we are proposing a roof system that not only protects the students from the elements, but allows the spaces below it to be as open air as possible.

Iskandar and Jeff

Studio has gone by so fast. We are entering the final week before deadline, just having had a pinup yesterday. Iskandar, my partner from the UM studio, and I are going to finalize the plan and site layout and then dive into cost analysis and detailing. We really have to figure out exactly how our building would be constructed. We’re working off of a modular system and trying to make it simple. By next Monday we should get to that point that where we would know exactly how to construct a module ourselves. From there on, the idea is that the module is simple enough to repeat.


Working with a partner is really something different. Up until now, every studio has been on my own and every decision has been solely up to me. Working with Iskandar really forces me to keep an open mind and investigate ideas that I would have otherwise just passed over, especially if we have different opinions. I mean, if there was an idea that at first glance didn’t look good to me in past studios, I might just forget it and move on. With a partner, I’m really forced to consider ideas that at first may not seem fitting- really think about why I don’t like it, what good qualities it has, then step back and re-evaluate from a different perspective. It really pushes me to think differently.

Our scheme is based off ideas of diversity and variety. It goes against having a singular dominant space, building, or identity and provides a variety of spatial experiences for the kids. Classrooms are separated into various clusters, which bleed into primary unifying spaces- each cluster has its own quality.

It’s very exciting being able to design for such a real and helpful cause, it really motivates us to figure things out and make sure everything works. There’s a lot of work ahead of us this week though. We’ll see how it goes.

wendy and niloo

Wendy and I started the project talking about our goals, finally coming to a resolution: we decided to keep the buildings that they have and cherish so much, because they very important to them. Therefor our basic concept is rooted in simplicity and do-ability. We have committed ourselves to keeping the existing building's structure and simply adding onto it. The goal is to give them a framework which can then be infilled with any number of materials left up to the school's and village's discretion - hopefully giving them even further investment in the school buildings.

We've had a great time working together. Wendy invited me to stay over her house and meet her family. It has been a really nice experience to work with a partner and identify someone else's design strengths. We share a lot of similar design ideals - which makes the designing a lot easier. But it's our differences that make the project exciting. We're continuing to develop the design further, but very much looking forward to seeing the final product soon! --- niloo

#1

I, Bobby Lee (San Mateo, USA) was paired with University of Malay student Zuhali Zainon (Sungai Petani, Malaysia). Our
initial concept was to create some sort of structure that utilized moveable partitions so that the spaces could be transformed
according to the needs of the students. As we've progressed we have also designed a double-courtyard: one paved and one completely landscaped. Through thermal transfer cool air will be brought into the site naturally and creating a cool microclimate inside the school. This experience has been frustrating at times, but mostly rewarding thus far. It has been very interesting and sometimes tiring, to see and discuss the different architectural backgrounds we each have. Zuhali creates incredible renderings. Here's one:

Back for the now weekly post:

We've been very busy over at UM -- less than ten days before the final presentation! On Monday we had a crit with all of our professors, UM + USC. It went really well, and they pushed us all in different directions - hoping we would explore areas we had not yet. Some of us were told to make more models, some were told to explore larger structures, and some to study materials in more depth. We are all expected to have a full height detail drawing at 1:20 for our final review, which means a fairly in depth knowledge of the construction of our project. We are also expected to produce a budget, meaning we all must find creative and inexpensive structural solutions. Quite a new task for us since we are used to designing fictional projects! Definitely a useful exercise.

Thursday we had studio and desk crits with our various professors. We paused to crits to finally take a group photo on the steps of the Fakulti of Alam Bina (the Built Environment), so here's everyone!:


In addition, we at the blog are going to be trying something new over the next ten days. Each day we are going to have a different group blog about their project and the overall experience. Hopefully it will give some insight into what our studio culture is like. We'd love feedback! Let us know how it's going or if there are any questions. We'll be starting soon..

The Malaysian students presented all of their site analysis today (after visiting it this past weekend) which was WONderful because they answered our questions and did some impressive investigative work. It's too bad we can't post the powerpoint directly because it was good and super dense.
They looked into the exact process we have to go through in order to get the project built, as well as some cost guidelines.
More design constraints came to light (ahh!) as the school expressed the desire to keep the wet fields in front of the site; as it turns out these areas are used to cultivate rice which is then sold and the profit used for facility maintenance.

(click to see the diagrams enlarged)
The UM students answered all of our lingering questions and confirmed some of the suspicions we had. There is a general consensus that we will be designing the school for 2000 children in kindergarten to sixth grade with a split day -- so 1000 students in the morning from 7:30-11 and 1000 students in the afternoon from 1:30-5.

first pinup

We have been really busy over at UM!

Here are the aerial photos of our site, thanks to google earth:


and site plan we've created:

Today we had our first pinup in studio in order to discuss our concepts, site strategies, and intentions for dealing with mother nature and our limited resources.

We've all been looking to take cues from the traditional Khmer (Cambodian)/Thai/Malay house because it has dealt with the heat and cooling issues relevant to this climate for so many years. The students inside the classrooms were sweating (though not as much as we were!) and we'd like to eliminate their discomfort because air conditioning is neither the solution nor an option. But we're also finding out how we can use their typical, readily availabe materials creatively. Some of the discoveries thus far include casted coconut husk powder, smoked, and therefore hardened, bamboo, and aerated concrete.
We discussed whether the answer is several bar buildings, clusters of smaller buildings, one massive tent like structure, or some combination of these.
A definitive answer is eluding us for the time being (as it always is in the beginning).

Jeff's project is looking into clusters of classroom-sized units:




Rose is looking into taking advantage of the shade from the trees the children naturally gravitate towards:



And Jen and Goldy are trying to create the ever-elusive wind tunnel, using physical principles:




And it's only the beginning...

Our Malaysian teammates are in Cambodia right now and planning to visit the site on Saturday and share their findings with us on Monday morning. Once they've seen it for themselves we will be able to collaborate more fully and see where things are headed.

We'll keep you posted on the results as soon as they return!

in the beginning...

The 2007 USC Asia Study Abroad Program, in conjunction with Universiti Malaya, is designing and funding a k-6 school located in Krabei Riel just outside Siem Reap, Cambodia.

As the students, we've created this blog to chronicle our progress.

To get the project started our Professor, James Steel, divided us into five groups (Project Management, Documentation, Site, Program, Precedents+Technology), gave us a loose program, and has allowed us to take charge from there.

On June 14th, after a morning of temple treking (Siem Reap is also home to the Ankgor temples), we got to visit Krabei Riel. As soon as we turned off the main road onto a smaller dirt one, we were in a completely different world. Our school is part of that world.

It was founded in 1979, but the two existing concrete structures weren't built until 1996 (which leads one to wonder what facilities were like those first 20 years...). Right now there are two buildings, in total housing 6 classrooms, an office and a (tiny) library. Because of overcrowding, they have built a large hut to house two extra classes, as well as two smaller ones acting as a kitchen and snack stand. The bathrooms are outhouses at the back of the site, but the children opt to make quicker trips behind the buildings or by the fence. (The fence is the very child-friendly barbed wire.) There is no electricity and no running water: the buildings are open air and the children hand pump water from the ground. There are 7 teachers, with one acting as head administrator. These teachers are there all day, but the students change. Because it is typical in Cambodia, and there is not space to accommodate everyone, there are separate morning and afternoon students of varying school levels.

Fortunately, we were able to interrupt a class and ask a few questions. When we asked what any student could have, if they could have anything, a boy simpy replied, "a book," A teacher added he also wished the children had fields. Sinec the school is surrounded by rice fields, the ground is either marshy-grass or dirt. Neither of which is suitable for playing soccer.

Communication was difficult since the teachers did not speak English fluently and our questions probably seemed extremely foreign. It must seem like such a stretch to them, the promist of a new facility, but it doesn't feel that way to us any longer. Our individual school experiences have been so different from these children's; it seems unfair they should have anything less. It is exciting to be part of a project (for school, no less) that will undoubtedly improve lives, lives of the next generation.

Since setting up camp in Kuala Lumpur at the Universiti of Malaya we've been gathering as much information as we can find, particularly gearing towards the Malaysia students taking our unanswered questions with them on their site visit July 12.