Permaculture Designed Primary School in Vanuatu
It was a busy week last week. I was asked by Permaculture Sustainable Consulting to go to the tropical Pacific island nation of Vanuatu to do a site consultation of two locations. The projects being implemented are a community center at the capital town of Vila on the island of Efate and a primary school on the island of Tanna to the south. The organization funding these projects is Muslim Aid Australia (MAA). The CEO of MAA has realised that permaculture design has the ability to assist aid work to actually help people for the long term rather than short term which is very exciting.
It was a quick visit to analyse the sites to see if the initial building designs can be implemented well into the topography and location and to also work well with the climatic factors influencing the sites. The next step is to continue designing the building configuration now that we know what the sites have to offer. We are hoping that the final outcome can be used as a model for other tropical applications. There has been interest from other pacific islands for similar projects so the potential from this project is quite promising.
Of course I intend to keep you updated! Tom
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Originally published: https://diyfoodandhealth.com/2016/06/01/permaculture-designed-primary-school-in-vanuatu/
Vanuatu holds a special place in my friend Deborah Dupre’s heart after spending time there serving as a missionary to families and young girls. As with other island nations depletion of fuel and materials access is a monumental long-range concern. Here’s where the pole architecture of Micronesia, etc., plays best. The goal is to get the donor-class to provide the vertical poles, simple enough where telephone poles are commonplace. Affixing decking, as well as lesser load-bearing vertical posts can be done by amateurs on the fly. Cross-bracing, be it diagonal decking or flat vertical infill, is a bottom-up proposition, each stage progressively enables the materials and occupants to remain in the dry.