architecture

5 fascinating ‘alternative’ school premises

i say ‘alternative’ but for many kids some of the examples shown below are the norm, be it through choice, location, cost restrictions or otherwise. either way, all these schools are creatively designed to say the least and there are plenty more to be marvelled at all over the world. if you know of any that deserve a mention, let us know.

1. cave school, ziyun, china

photos: reuters

above is dongzhong (translation: ‘mid-cave’) primary school in china’s guizhou province. as you can see, the whole school is housed in a huge naturally formed cave in the side of a mountain and looks absolutely incredible. considering the surroundings the conditions look pretty good and i’m guessing the kids who attend learn some invaluable lessons purely through the location.

2. underground school, northern virginia, usa

photos: treehugger

terraset elementary school in reston is one of the few schools on earth that’s been built under the earth. the decision to create a school in this way was apparently prompted by the energy crisis in the early 70s, the intention being to create a building that was as energy-concious as possible whilst still providing all the necessary facilities for local kids. a small hill in 14 acres of woodland was flattened, the school was placed on top and then earth covered the structure. to read more about the history of the building and the problems it faced due to its design, go here.

3. floating school, halong bay, vietnam

photo: antonogurl

the majority of tourists who visit vietnam (around 90%) will end up at halong bay, a huge stretch of coastline containing nearly 2′000 islands of varying size. surrounding many of the islands are floating villages - small communities of locals who have probably never lived on solid ground. above is one of many floating schools to be found dotted around the shores, flanked by school boats, the floating village’s equivalent to a school bus. in case you can’t read the sign…

“this construction was funded by the embassy of united kingdom through the national fund for vietnamese children.”

4. monolithic dome school, arizona, usa

there’s no doubt about it: this school looks like a building from another world. as if that weren’t enough, the powers that be also named it ‘frontier elementary school’. the structure itself is a monolithic dome - a recently popular method of construction that is surprisingly robust and extremely cost effective. a circular concrete base is set, an airfoam dome is inflated to the correct size and then reinforced using a variety of materials including a spray mix of concrete. you can read more about the process here and see a list of dome schools here.

5. shipping container school, amsterdam, netherlands

photos: purple cloud

this little beauty is daltonschool ‘de kleine kapitein’ in amsterdam, i believe a temporary home for the kindergarten attendees until new premises are completed in 2009. it’s a shame it’s just a stop-gap though as the use of shipping containers as habitable premises is a rapidly growing area of interest amongst designers and architects due to the many obvious advantages e.g. relative low-cost, huge abundance of containers to work with…

go here to see some permanent container projects, including a couple of school containers.

© 2008 deputydog.