Canchias School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

Larger Classroom — With typically 50 or more students per teacher, the Classrooms were designed to offer flexibility. Students can be broken into smaller groups, permitting each group to continue to work while the teacher is working with other groups or classrooms. So far this has been very effective. The classroom will also adapt to smaller student/teacher ratios in the future.

Furniture Custom Designed For Learning — The furniture was designed to be reconfigurable for different class activities. We also chose to use local natural resources and talent to build the furniture. While the furniture has functioned well, the locally built furniture required too much maintenance and the chairs were too heavy for younger students to move. In later schools we chose lighter weight manufactured chairs.

Natural Lighting and Ventilation For Classrooms — The front of the classroom was left as open as possible with fabricated steel framework and screens to allow for natural ventilation and illumination. The classrooms are oriented to allow the sunlight to reflect off the concrete walk in front of the classroom and light the classroom. These classrooms have proven to be much more comfortable learning environments.

Accessibility Considered Throughout School Design — The entire site was made accessible to physically challenged people, including all walks and toilet facilities.

Pre-K/Kindergarten Classroom — During community interviews, we found that many older children did not go to school because they are required to watch their younger siblings while their parents work in the fields, etc. By including a Pre-K/Kindergarten classroom in the design of the new school, we found that attendance at the school increased by nearly 50%. This also serves as a great head-start program for the younger children.

Community Multi-Purpose Room (Future Classroom) — We constructed a Community Multi-Purpose room to encourage community use of school facilities and continued community support of the school.

Inclusion Of The Community In The Design Process — Parents and community leaders were invited to a pre-design community workshop, to discuss what the community wanted in their school. The community was then invited to review several optional designs of their new school and recommend any changes prior to the start of construction. Community members were also told that their help was needed to complete the construction of the new school, including the donation of labor and the collection of sand from the bottom of the nearby river during construction. They were also made responsible for developing a committee that would make sure the school had a teacher and for maintaining the new school.

Since the school has been completed, the community has continued to plant flowers at the school site and have since painted the outside of the school.

Written Community Agreement — A written Agreement with community leaders for their participation in the project and the responsibilities of each party after the project is completed has facilitated the community’s buy-in and acceptance of responsibility for the continued operation of the school.

Teacher Workshops — Educators from North America participated in a teacher workshop with the teachers in the new school. Teachers from both countries exchanged ideas on how to make the classrooms more effective learning environments.

Student Participation — North American High School students and Architecture Students from Honduran universities have been added to the design team. They have added valuable cultural and local design insights that have continued to improve our sensitivity to local values.