The Architecture of Happiness

Watching the steady progress of the structures for Panyaden School is like observing artists and artisans sculpting works of art from bamboo and earth. Here, in a temporary bamboo sala (Thai style open pavilion), artists are joining large pieces of bamboo to form one of the four trusses for the kindergarten roof. Each of the completed trusses will spread out dramatically like fingers that hold up the curved roof leaved by bamboo shingles.

Outside, 3 men and women are weaving a tapestry out of thin strips of bamboo, to layer onto the same roof. A few meters away under the relentless sun other men are standing on the very bamboo poles that they are entwining to make up the bones of a sala. From their height, they overlook tents of blue where teams of men and women are mixing ingredients of soil, gravel and water that their other colleagues are using to tamper into rammed earth walls each day.

Step by step, piece by piece, these sculptures will become kindergartens, charming salas for classes, an assembly hall, a playhouse and so on – organic, beautiful yet functional structures crafted to be experienced and enjoyed by the pupils and the teachers.

The maestros behind these art pieces are Maartje Lammers and Olav Bruin from 24h-Architects in Rotterdam, Their inspiration for the master plan was a simple fern leaf that is shaped like the horns of an antler.

Olav feels that the “amazingly friendly and flexible design of the leaf” allows for an openness that blends well with the expanse of the rice fields around the school site and the mountains in the distance.

It is also facilitates “the flow of people” in a safe and comfortable way.

The master design plan has evolved since its conception to accommodate new ideas and needs. However, the essential openness and the style of the structures have not changed.

The bamboo roofs of the kindergarten, for example, still drape like soft fabric atop the load-bearing rammed earth walls.

For some people, they look like leaves; for others, like the slopes of the mountains. These designs, like art, are open to interpretation. It does not matter what you think them to be but that you perceive and “read the building” as Olav aptly puts it. See the beam that holds up the sala. It is made of bamboo. ‘Why/how?’ are some of the questions that Panyaden School will answer.

The ‘reading’ (and learning) starts from the driveway to the school. A lush canopy is to be shaped by the meeting of overarching bamboo plants* grown on both sides of the road to arouse “the experience of walking through a bamboo forest” (Olav). This bamboo tunnel will lead us to the first bamboo sala (the Parents’ Sala) whose structure will rise out of large stones grounded to the earth (see photographs). The experience continues at the kindergarten. Touch and feel the rammed earth walls. See how red soil is integrated into the walls to add colour. Sit in the cool little ‘caves’ created in some of the walls for the children.

All these designs and more come together to form what Alain de Botton describes as “The Architecture of Happiness” (Alain de Botton, ISBN 978-0241142486, Pantheon Books, 2006) where the quality of the environment: the buildings, the materials, a truss, a wall, can affect our well-being.

Here, the expressive yet functional structures and the surroundings of Panyaden School, built by teams of people with the materials of the earth, will bring sustenance and evoke a quiet joy and warmth in those who will be using it.

*Bamboo is actually a grass from the Poaceae family (wikipedia)