Context BD• MASCO School

DESIGN. ARCHITECTURE. CULTURE

MASCO School | Design Source

MASCO schoool -elementary designed by Design Source

Name:	Md. Shahrier Hasan \| DESIGN SOURCE
Year:	2015
Location:	Kanchan, Rupganj
Client:	M. A. Sabur

MASCO School – an elementary school designed by DESIGN SOURCE is located just outside of Purbachal Model Town. The school building is laid out to create a moderate size playground for the children. This playground, perhaps, the most significant feature of the project. The playground is the heart of the school and hosts a range of activities, academic and cultural events. The building acts as backdrop for the playground. The open floor plan allows a smooth transition between playground and the building itself.

| From the Architect |

MASCO SCHOOL – a newly founded elementary school located in Kanchan, Rupganj. This English medium school is at their initial stage and currently operating their curricula from play group to KG-1. By next two years there is a plan to expand from class-1 to class-7.

ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE

The design process started with respect to the nature and the character of the local landscape. The challenge was to keep the height, length and proportion of the building mass at intimate scale to the surrounding landscape. The 3 storied building with 340 sqm per floor area is modest in size and modern in volumetric expression, functionality and structural simplicity.

The north-south elongated school building is rectangular in plan with service areas like store, toilet etc. located at east and west corner of the block. The classrooms in each floor are connected by a single loaded corridor wide enough to host occasional functional activity. A centrally located staircase is connecting all 3 floors vertically.

Design effort has given to merge the building with the surrounding vegetal landscape and open spaces. Local plants and creepers are introduced to cover the hard surface of the buildings and boundary walls as well. Various plants are also used at the corridor side railing which ensure additional protection for the children and give a new definition of typical school corridor. For proper wind flow and to keep the building in comfort temperature screens are used at the south side of staircase area and east-west side of service block and eventually has given a monolithic look.

MATERIAL & TECHNOLOGY

This project is constructed with very simple frame structure (beam and column) and steel roofing. Local and available materials are used for the project. Machine made brick, 3.75” x 3.75” screen, neat cement finish, composite windows made of wood and glass primarily with limited use of wooden texture aluminum panel. Windows are casement and pivoted type. For enhancing the roughness rustic tiles have been used as a floor finish material. In the landscape concrete blocks are used for walkway.

CONSTRAINS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

The project is completed in April 2015 within less than year after commencement in July 2014. However during the construction period multitasking enthusiasm and practical issues such as limited vehicular access to the site, high material transport cost and time management etc continuously interrupted the project timeline.

PROJECT BRIEF

Architectural Consultant	Design Source
Principal Architect	Md. Shahrier Hasan
Associate Architects	Md. Ariful Islam
	Md. ShahriarAlam
Structure	Eng. Md. MonayemAhmen
Electrical	Eng. Md. Sumon Chowdhury
Landscape	Design Source

Site area	2171 Sqm (32.44 katha)
Built area	School Building- 961.89 Sqm
	Indoor Games- 195.16 Sqm
	Admin- 75 Sqm
	Utility & services- 51.30 sqm
Year of commencement	July, 2014
Year of completion	April, 2015
Project cost in BD taka	1.75 corer (appx.)