Kuwait used to have a strong agricultural movement, which this new school will hopefully help to revive.
When we think of Kuwait, not only do we have a hard time getting past the young hunter who killed a wolf and then posed for a series of family shots, but we also envision an unforgivable industrial landscape pocked with oil drilling platforms and desalination plants. While not entirely inaccurate, present day Kuwait belies a fertile past. Educators are hoping to reinvigorate “the Cradle of Civilization” with a new green roofed school designed by Perkins + Will that promotes hands-on agricultural learning.
The Kuwait Teaching School will double as a K-12 school and a teaching environment for the University students at the nearby School of Education, according to World Architecture News.
This new school is designed to promote experimental teaching, to branch away from the rote memorization model of learning that ensures that most Kuwaitis have zero knowledge of their agricultural history. To implement a more hands on approach, the designer created plenty of outdoor space at grade and even on the school’s roof.
Landscaped roofs have become very popular in the western world since they absorb carbon emissions, insulate homes, and foster creative use of urban space, and countries in the Middle East and North Africa are slowly catching on. Egypt in particular has seen a surge of rooftop farming in the last year, largely as a result of food insecurity.
And while it seems that farming in the desert is impossible, advanced irrigation techniques or even soil-less farming make it completely viable – something that the Kuwait Teaching School will hopefully demonstrate with a series of laboratories, gardens, observatories and play spaces that defy the conventional classroom-based curriculum.
This is a very exciting development for the region, and we hope it spurs a host of similar projects.
:: WAN
More on Green Building in the Middle East:
Hassan Fathy is the Middle East’s Father of Sustainable Architecture
Nader Khalili Built Earth Buildings Fit for Space
Yemen’s Manhattan of the Desert Features 400 Habitable Clay Towers
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
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