Housing for 100 students

Discussion in 'Designing, building, making and powering your life' started by LeeWilde, Jun 5, 2015.

  1. LeeWilde

    LeeWilde Junior Member

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    I've become involved with a small charity that plans to build an academy to educate, house, feed and clothe students, all for free. Idea is for one year stints, so far, and then new set of students. Students to come from "disadvantaged' situations, with the mission being to offer homes, a hand up and hope to those in need.

    I'm the permaculture consultant :D so trying to get my head around the scope of this (having only done my own property as an actual project so far). I might start threads for different aspects of the design so as not to get all confused and lcuttered in one thread, and this one is about housing.

    So. To house 100 students? Staff will also live on site for the most part, but I am guessing since they are more permanent (hopefully) they would have separate dwellings. I think personally that to start with fewer students and work up as we develop the site might be the way to go but haven't discussed it with the other people involved yet. They've just given me the number of 100 students to work with, so I'm factoring that in.

    I'm thinking dormitory style for ease of building and efficiency, but privacy? Families? Perhaps self-contained dwelling for families, or self-contained sleeping units, at least, for families - but then still have communal kitchen, showers etc. That would surely be easier than building entire houses with kitchen/bathroom. Just bedroom/living space?

    Any projects out there currently doing something similar that you could point me to for inspiration or advice?
     
  2. 9anda1f

    9anda1f Administrator Staff Member

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    Hi Lee,
    Sounds like a fun project!
    Where will the academy be located? Many things to consider for housing, not only cost to construct but ongoing costs for utilities/heat/cooling.
    You say a small charity ... meaning small budget? Are you open to proposing alternative building approaches?
     
  3. LeeWilde

    LeeWilde Junior Member

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    So far looking like Western Australia, southwest, but that will depend on some degree as to suitable properties. WA, anyway.
    So far we have no funding, but once we get a collection license in WA (we are already federally registered as a nifty charity) and can apply for grants/donations etc the budget will hopefully be fairly hefty. Of course we are still going to cut costs as much as possible by doing things efficiently, because there is always going to be somewhere else we could use the money.

    Small charity as in not many people working on the project as of right now, but one of my jobs is to gather support to hopefully that will change soon. We'll stay small-ish though - we're not aiming to be Red Cross or anything. The idea is to build an academy here and then teach people how to build their own, so the concept can spread organically. We already have a partnership with a group in Uganda that will make a micro-academy for women and children survivors of extreme trauma.

    I think alternative building is the way we're going. I suggested building with many different types of alternative construction (cob, strawbale, earthship, etc) as a demonstration of the differences/pros/cons etc, and also as a learning experience for the students. I will need to look into this further to see what would be most feasible to begin with.

    I am hoping with good design to begin with, ongoing costs will be minimal. The plan is to be off-grid, I believe. So properly oriented, solar passive buildings with rocket masonry heaters, rainwater collection and solar power for lighting/computers etc would be the way to go.

    Obviously planning laws and that kind of thing (which i currently know nothing about - but I shall learn) will factor in once we find a suitable property, but in the meantime I'd like to figure out a usable configuration of buildings...

    Today's playing with designs netted a circular kind of arrangement, with an indoor/outdoor communal kitchen and living area in the centre, and a broken ring of buildings surrounding it for dormitories, lecture halls, cabins etc. And in between those and the kitchen is Zone 1 kitchen garden. Obviously doesn't take into account slope etc of actual site, but as a general idea it was cute :)
     
  4. LeeWilde

    LeeWilde Junior Member

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    Another aspect of this I've been thinking about lately is the transition from start-up to established. Obviously we won't be able to just bring in 100 students on one day, have them all build their own house and sleep there that night.

    Before anyone can live there at all there'll need to be some preliminary kind of set-up... toilets/showers, a kitchen, and sleeping quarters. So possibly off-site volunteers to build the first stage - maybe a strawbale workshop hosted on site, with the result being a dormitory-style building to house the people who will go on to build the next stage?

    Compost toilets and rocket-heater/solar showers. Quickly established zone 1 kitchen gardens to start providing SOME kind of vegetable supplement to bought food.

    Then extra dormitory style sleeping areas... but with separate rooms/compartments for privacy, so perhaps that is not called dormitory - but all included under the same roof and same external walls for ease and efficiency of building. Rocket mass heater in small common area outside bedrooms.

    Cabins to come later for family units.
     

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