Day Care in Hurricane Territory
Type: Academic Work
Location: Saba, Caribbean
2023
Saba is a tiny remote island located in the Caribbean, with a population of around 2000 people. It consists entirely of a volcanic mountain 887 meters high, and it has a land area of no more than 13 square kilometres. There were three main challenges with building in this location: 1. Bringing building materials to the island is very expensive. 2. The island is located in hurricane territory. 3. The climate is extremely hot and humid year round and faces heavy rainfall. The projects solves all three of these challenges at once by submerging the entire building into the steep landscape. This shelters the building from heavy winds and direct sun. The rocky soil extracted by this operation is used to create various building materials including gabion walls, face rock and compressed earth blocks directly on site. Special chimneys use the sun and wind to generate stack ventilation through the roof assembly. The gardens between the classrooms provide additional shade and evaporative cooling, and the exposed earth blocks help to balance the high humidity.