Toigetation

Most rural schools in the country lack toilets that meet health standards, and many have none. In a very poor mountain commune of about 1,700 people, mostly from ethnic minorities, the school of 485 pupils had no proper sanitation. The project combines toilets, a washing area and vegetation in one structure, designed to be quick and cheap to build and easy to repeat.

The Vietnamese design team drew on the image of a large tree whose wide canopy shades the space beneath. The structure sits humbly into the slope at the foot of a mountain, wrapped on four sides by a thick layer of trees and herbs and surrounded by a terraced garden, which tempers the climate inside, supports the structure, supplies food and marks a soft boundary between inside and out.

Teachers, pupils and villagers built it with local materials, bamboo, brick and reused sewer pipes, using simple handcraft methods of pinning, tying and hanging, with balanced digging and filling so the structure stays anchored against storms. It is naturally lit and ventilated, with solar panels for power and waste reused.