Construction 2025 – Beekeeping laboratory 

The construction of a biological laboratory for honey processing was an opportunity for us to test a wide range of potential approaches of ensuring a good indoor environment in the school buildings, and especially classrooms.

Our main goal was to ensure uniform and high-quality light access to classrooms. Based on our experience, most classrooms tend to be very wide, which leads to uneven light distribution. Therefore, we came up with a clerestory lighting, a globally recognized method used to bring light to sacral or gathering spaces. This feature, as well as rotate the bricks on the façade by 90 degrees enabled natural ventilation of the building. Air enters from beneath the parapet and exits from the clerestory opening, driven by the stack effect created by the height difference between the incoming and outgoing air.

We also incorporated reinforcing half-columns into the façade. In addition to their stabilizing function, they add rhythm to the façade, which would otherwise appear as a large, uniform mass in the small-scale context typical of Kashitu.

The roof structure was improved by incorporating clay tiles which act as both thermal and acoustic shield for the space beneath. The tiles absorb the sound of raindrops hitting the roof, and accumulate any heat obtained from the sunlight. As a result, the structure will therefore cool during the day and radiate heat at night.

The presence of the clay mixture in the structure introduces the risks such as moisture accumulation and insect colonization. To mitigate, the structure includes a plastic membrane, which separates the wooden boarding from the clay tiles. The mixture used for tiles consists primarily of the same clayey soil used in our bricks, enriched with stones to resist shrinking of the tiles during drying.