Diébédo Francis Kéré
The Revival of Vernacular
Architecture
Known for using traditional materials and resources from the area where the building is located to create innovative and sustainable works, Diébédo Francis Kéré has been a leading figure in the revival of the vernacular architecture.
Kéré’s architectural work has received recognition on a global scale, including the Global Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction in 2012 and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, the Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso.
In 2022, he became the first African to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, one of the most prestigious annual architecture prizes in the world, which was established by The Hyatt Foundation in 1979 to honor a living architect. Kéré has worked on projects in a number of countries, such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Togo, Sudan, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Diébédo Francis Kéré was born in Burkina Faso, a country where the majority of the people lack access to clean drinking water, electricity and infrastructure, in 1965. His childhood classroom in Tenkodogo was made of cement blocks and was devoid of ventilation and light.
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Stuck in that classroom with over one hundred classmates for hours, he realized the importance of constructing buildings that suit the climate at a earlier age. Educated at the Technical University of Berlin, he established the Kéré Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides public infrastructure for the community of Gando in Burkina Faso.
Gando Primary School
Kéré’s first building, the Gando Primary School was finished in 2001, while he was still a student at the Technical University in Berlin. It was built by and for the people of Gando.
Schools in Burkina Faso are normally built out of concrete, an expensive and energy
consumptive material to produce, unsuitable for the local climate, since it causes the interior to become extremely hot. Burkina Faso sits in the Sahel region, the transitional belt stretching from the Atlantic coast of West Africa to the Red Sea in the east, dividing the Sahara desert and tropical savannas.
Clay construction is a hallmark of Sahelian architecture, an effective means of building in a harsh climate in which timber and stone are not easy to find. Inspired by this, Kéré decided to use locally available resources and chose to build with earth in the form of mud bricks.
The bricks, composed of a mixture of clay and cement, were formed and sun-dried on-site.
Structurally resilient and eco-friendly, the bricks’ mass insulates the interior from even the hottest days, when temperatures often exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Kéré’s innovative design consists of a wide, elevated tin roof to protect the walls from rain, and permit air to circulate underneath for building cooling. The finished building was much more cooler than the conventional concrete school buildings.
Gando Primary School could be regarded as a modern application of earthen construction and shares the characteristics of vernacular architecture.
Gando Secondary School
Construction of a secondary school designed by Kéré began in May 2011. The new building complex was designed to accommodate around 1000 students. The layout is inspired by the traditional rural households in Burkina Faso: the classrooms are set out in a circular fashion forming a courtyard, protecting it from the dust and sand brought by the Harmattan winds.
The structure is open on its West side, allowing cool breeze to enter the area, an innovative
air-cooling system that uses only natural ventilation. The school is surrounded by a bank of earth, on which trees are planted.
The secondary school uses a roof design with a wide corrugated iron roof raised above a clay ceiling. Air circulates between ceiling and roof, heats up and rises, creating a suction current below. This causes the cool air from the under floor pipes to rise, reducing room temperature by an estimated 6 – 8°C. With simple methods such as these, the need for electricity is minimized in construction and maintenance.
Throughout the years, Burkina Faso’s expanding population and the predominant use of firewood as fuel have caused major deforestation problems. It is estimated that 60% of the trees in Burkina Faso have been chopped down in the last 15 years.
Besides, reforestation programmes often plant eucalyptus trees which grow quickly, but soak up huge amounts of groundwater at the expense of local agriculture. In order to solve this problem, the secondary school uses wood from eucalyptus trees for construction, and mango trees are planted in their place.
The mango trees need less water, yield fruit and provide more shade than eucalyptus trees. This design won the 2012 Global Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction Gold.
In an age when leading architects routinely rely on materials that are shipped halfway around the world, Kéré’s designs highlight the importance of local resources. The school buildings Kéré designed require almost no energy to operate, a necessity in a remote
region that is devoid of infrastructure for power and water.
Kéré’s works in Africa have also yielded quite positive results for the community, not only by accelerating the process of sustainable development, but also by providing academic education for children and medical treatment for the ill.
Sources
https://www.kerefoundation.com/en
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di%C3%A9b%C3%A9do_
Francis_K%C3%A9r%C3%A9
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/pritzker-prizewinner-
diebedo-francis-keres-radical-approach
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/mar/15/
it-is-unbelievable-francis-kere-becomes-first-black-architectto-
win-the-pritzker-prize
https://www.pritzkerprize.com/laureates/diebedo-franciskere#
laureate-page-2421
Prepared by: Murat Soygür
