Tucked away in the agricultural outskirts of Nakuru Town, Kenya’s third city, is a home for local disadvantaged and abandoned children. It is characterized by a variety of social spaces, from open communal areas to quiet hide-outs, offering assorted opportunities for play, study, and rest.
The center contests the programmatic arrangement of the typical African orphanage while working within a new vernacular language. It employs heavyweight earthbag construction—the first of its kind in Kenya—embracing a lightweight timber frame.
St. Jerome’s Center visualizes the ability and greatness of community effort and innovative construction. Constructed by a diverse group from a small community in the locale, comprising both skilled and semi-skilled laborers, the center is an exceptional model for Orkidstudio’s vision to benefit children and communities through innovative design and construction.
Social change has resonated in the community, with the residents more willing, if not eager, to construct their own homes using local earthbags, thanks to the skills and knowledge absorbed during construction. The community credits the architects with simulating skills creation and economic development for the workers involved and inspiring the entire area to alternative low-cost modes of construction.
This conscious design provides the children with room maximum occupancy of 4, unlike the large en-mass dormitories typical of such homes. Communal areas and quiet nooks and crannies offer spaces to study, read, or simply relax, evoking social development for the children and creating a five-star experience for them.
Turning away from costly concrete and stone, the construction utilized earth bags, using the large quantities of soil generated from foundation, sanitation, and rainwater storage excavation. With a clay content of 20%, the local soil was ideal for construction; it was packed into ordinary grain bags and laid to create deep, durable walls of high thermal mass that regulate daytime and night temperature variations.
Built in just 8 weeks, with the collaborative efforts and service of architecture students from different UK universities and local communal laborers, including women, the home sets precedents for fair wages and payment of both men and women in construction.
The new home also features timber cladding made from pillar cores, a by-product of veneer processing and a material often discarded as waste. A rainwater harvesting system and integrated community tap provide a unique source of clean running water.
Profoundly rooted in its context and engaging vernacular modes of construction and local materials, the project achieves a contemporary final product. Moreover, invaluable skills imparted to the local community have already been met with success; the majority of the laborers have been approached and contracted to build more earth-bag homes and teach these skills to others, the ripple effect of community empowerment and innovation.
Project Information
Architects: Orkidstudio
Location: Nakuru, Kenya
Key Sponsors: Barr+Wray, Drum Property Group, Jestico+Whiles, Lee Wakemans, Morris & Spottiswood
Completed: 2014
Photographer: Odysseas Mourtzouchos
Floor area:400 sqm
Cost: £50,000
Cost per sqm: £126 per sqm
