METI Handmade School
Anna Heringer
This Modern Education and Training Institute (METI) school in Rudrapur, Bangladesh, was designed by architect Anna Henringer and constructed using local materials (such as clay and bamboo) and local labor.
The METI Handmade School designed by Anna Heringer for the Dipshikha Society for Village Development is a sustainable design for a building made entirely with local materials, technology and labour. It employed only locals over the 6 months it took to be built. It is made out of bamboo, mud, straw, bricks, and other locally sourced materials. Measuring 325 square meters, it has 3 classrooms on the ground floor, two divisable classrooms on the upper floor, and 6 “caves” where children can read or relax. The design won the 2007 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and the 2006 AR Emerging Architecture award.
*Please note that building designs are being included as “products” in the Habitat Sector of the Solutions Library to allow readers to learn from how projects were designed and constructed and how they are serving the occupants, whether effective or ineffective.
The project had a budget of ~41,080 USD (35,000 EUR)Converted on August 2021.
Cited in a report, the clients noted that replication of the project may be difficult due to a lack of equipment, resources, and labor. Therefore, competing designs include locally-sourced projects or building techniques that emphasize easy replicability, such as Good Earth Global Earthbag Construction.
Target users include the village’s 168 school students. The target implementer includes the Dipshikha NGO who uses the building for its METI project and was interested in the transfer of building technology to the local workers.
