Oh my, what a story. I spent an hour clicking through his site looking at drawings and watching videos. The story keeps getting better the more you learn. Kéré’s work has depth and quality. He is very inspiring.
“Diébédo Francis Kéré knew exactly what he wanted to do when he got his degree in architecture… He wanted to go home to Gando in Burkina Faso, to help his neighbors reap the benefit of his education. In this charming talk, Kéré shows off some of the beautiful structures he’s helped to build in his small village in the years since then, including an award-winning primary school made from clay by the entire community.”
Excellent initiative and very nice and good projects built with CEBs.
Up the CEBs !!
Yes, but he also uses rammed earth, stone, rebar trusses and other materials and innovative building methods. His rammed earth system, for instance, uses a two-part form that’s quite efficient. Someday the same earth will be poured in the forms. Poured earth has already developed, but the inventor has chosen to maximize their profit. http://www.michaelfrerking.com/poured.html This approach has limited the use to a handful of high dollar projects. Tip: there are business models that both rapidly spread new technologies and create a fair profit. How long until someone in China, India, etc. figures this out and strikes out on their own? Probably not too long given the international reach of this blog.
YouTube also has a substantial amount of videos about Kere’s projects.
Here are 3 of the better videos I have seen. They focus on the schools he has built, but the videos give a pretty good tour inside and out, and show the methods of construction well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-S3wFadwbk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdT_TwcA0qQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgrIhbuneSI
Diébédo Francis Kéré has his own website that offers details about his many projects.
http://www.kerearchitecture.com/projects/
Thanks. I had that link and somehow it got misplaced. The other site is very good also.