Nka Foundation announces a call for entries for its 4th Earth Architecture Competition: Designing a School for Ghana, an international architecture competition open to graduates and advanced students of architecture, design and others from around the world who think earth architecture can be beautiful.
The challenge is to design a unit of a school for students of ages 12 to 18 years that can be built with earth and other local materials in rural Ghana. Total costs of constructing the design entry must not exceed $8,000 (USD) for materials; local labor excluded from this price point.
Jurors will award prizes for 1st: $1,500; 2nd: $1,000; and 3rd: $500. Honorable mentions may be awarded, but will receive no cash prize.
The organizer is issuing this challenge to the architecture world to help generate modern mud housing for education to replace the rural mud house type. The basic idea is to generate durable and scalable mud house types by drawing on the accumulated knowledge about ways of building in a tropical climate. The emphasis is on durable housing because, in Ghana, as in other countries in West Africa, stereotypes about buildings made of earth persist because of poor construction. The construction site is Abetenim Village, near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.
Registration must be completed until 25 April 2016 and entries can then be submitted until 31 May 2016.
Nka Foundation is a nonprofit organization in the United States that exists to serve underserved communities in Africa and similar places through arts and design education.
Nka Foundation’s 4th Earth Architecture Competition Registration Fees
The registration fee per entry is $40 for individual and $60 for a team.
