Jungle Flower

The primary school serves children of an ethnic minority in a remote mountain village reached by a rough path barely two metres wide, where nine in ten households are poor. The old school had earth floors, pallet walls and torn canvas against the winter cold.

After two years of work, the new school appears on its rugged peak like a bright jungle flower. The Vietnamese design team gave it proper light, ventilation and sound insulation, with classrooms, multipurpose rooms, a medical room, library, kitchen, toilets and a dormitory. The idea was a school as a mountain and a mountain as a school: classrooms follow the terrain, with slots between them, and a corridor winding up and down like a mountain path links everything.

To save money and improve insulation, bricks were made from soil removed while levelling the site, and colourful roofs and walls make each corner feel different for the children.