Zimbabwe’s Rising Star School by Ingenieure ohne Grenzen

WORDS Cheri Morris PHOTOS Kristina Egbers via archdaily.com

Divesting from the architectural uniformity characteristic of Zimbabwean schools, The Rising Star lives up to its name in both an educational and aesthetic sense with its series of landmark filigree arches almost entirely hand-crafted with 600,000 immaculately laid bricks.

Located in Hopley, a district of Harare, The Rising Star by Ingenieure ohne Grenzen was founded in 2010 and has grown continuously with the last seven annual construction phases allowing for education and construction to occur coterminously.

An ode to the meticulousness of hands and innovation of minds, bricklayers forged the towering arches under which children learn with help from only a few technical devices – a testament to tenacity forced by a lack of a regulated, reliable water and electricity supply. Also in favour of the facilitation of learning, Hopley’s new center emerged almost imperceptibly from an unusually quiet construction site. The results of which are quite obviously no less impressive than the kind neighbours of noisy construction damn to hell.

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The 14 classrooms are located in three single-story buildings, with the kindergarten on the ground floor, and the school administration on the upper floor of the two-story structure. All classrooms and administration rooms enjoy climate control afforded by a natural ventilation system built into the double roof. The openings inside the steel-glass façade that separate the classrooms from the walkway, as well as those in the outer wall, ensure cross ventilation too.

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