During the spring, Birney partnered with a local architect in an effort to help our sister school, the Sound Preparatory School, in Mpraeso, Ghana. Candace Vanderhoff, a local architect who specializes in sustainable living, approached us with an opportunity to partner on a design focusing on school environment for an architecture competition put on by Architecture for Humanity. We quickly agreed. The competition offers a $50,000 reward to help build the winning design, as well as a $5000 grant to go towards the effort.
Our sister school had informed us earlier in the school year that they were unable to build their new school structure due to lack of funds; instead they had to use their money to buy texts and other materials for the children. Birney took action and our local families raised $138 at our IB Festival through an Adopt-A-Pet fundraiser and are currently raising more money through a schoolwide penny drive!
When approached with the opportunity to enter an architectural competition that could end in the reward of $50,000 towards their building, we could not resist. We felt this was a great opportunity to help our sister school, and so did Candace Vanderhoff. She designed an incredible sustainable structure that encompasses the needs of the students, teachers, and family community in Mpraeso, Ghana. She did a great amount of research to find out what materials are readily available in Ghana to use for building the structure, the typical weather patterns of the region, rainfall amounts, and the needs of the students and teachers. She also read through stacks of letters written back and forth between Birney students and Sound Preparatory students to look for clues about their local landscape and their current needs. We also corresponded via email with the director of the sister school to get some questions answered. She used all of this information, and more, to create an amazing structure that could be used in a variety of ways by the learning community.
Vanderhoff entered her design in the competition on June 1, 2009, and we can hardly wait to find out the results. Thousands of designs were entered in the competition and they have chosen the top 52 designs as of last week. These chosen designs will be put on exhibition at the Aspen Ideas Festival and the final jury will vote on the winning design.
Regardless of the results of this competition, Vanderhoff's efforts went above and beyond, and her design is already accessible to the Sound Preparatory School for the building of their new school structure. The question now is: how can we make this design a reality regardless of the results of the competition? Thank you Candace Vanderhoff for your vision, your time, and your brilliant design. We hope the competition ends in great success for our sister school!