Education as a Core Value
For the Al-Ayat Project an open call for a design competition was held. We invited architecture students to present their most creative solutions and proposals to address project needs. The project is located in the small village of Abu Ghaddan, in Al-Ayat, 60 km away from Giza.The village’s direct beneficiaries are 1000 individuals with 4000 more in need from surrounding villages. The goal is that this project acts as a pilot to be replicated and developed on a rather wider scale in the field. Elementary school students walked nearly 7 Km every day to reach the nearest school while school absenteeism in the village and surrounding ones reached dangerously high levels. Many children would not continue their education in this climate. Through this project, we aimed to work on community inclusion, education, sustainable practice, and healthcare. Using the project to raise the community’s environmental awareness towards; sustainable building, the use of environmentally-friendly and local building materials, decreasing water and energy consumption, effective waste disposal, as well as broadening the residents’ awareness towards living sustainably and at low costs. Handover was very keen on the kind of impact that the school would leave on the students, staff, and the community as a whole, and not only the environmental impact, but also an impact on education, ecology, and health, all directly affecting the community.
Education being one of our four core values, The Al Ayyat Community School was designed particularly for students of Al Ayyat, Giza but also as a pilot development meant for replication on a nationwide scale.
