Francis Kéré’s Revolutionary Slingshot Towards Architectural Sustainability

Imagine a typical day during the hot season at Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso, where a building designed by architect, Diébédo Francis Kéré, has transformed the learning experience since its completion in 2001. As the sun rises in the small, Burkinabé village of Gando, the students are arriving at Gando Primary School already feeling the heat of the region too intense to beggar our human, evolutionary ability to adapt to anything. Across the dry savanna landscape, there is dust everywhere just as the roofs of the nearby traditional buildings are becoming one with the sun. However, as the students enter their respective classes, their daily sigh of anticipation and relief is resounding: the temperature has dropped considerably enough to make even them think they are in a completely different climate; soft, natural light filters through the perforated ceiling; the zephyr moves smoothly through the classrooms, courtesy of the elevated roof design; the sound of wind also flows through the building’s ventilation gaps; and the texture of the compressed earth blocks stay cool to the touch. The students are comfortably working at their desks, and the teachers are moving between corridors without sweating. What seems to have been an almost irrepressible reality has been conditioned by sustainable architecture, headed and made possible by the innovative brilliance of Kéré.