Kopila Valley School

Location: Birendranagar, Surkhet, Nepal

Area: 7350 square feet

Budget: Approx. 350k USD

Completed: 2018. Duration of Construction: 14 months

Designers: Nripal Adhikary, Rakshya Rayamajhi, Asmita Sigdel, Pranathi.

Photographs: Chemi Dorje Lama

Early Childhood Village

Kopila Valley School is co-founded by Top Malla and Maggie Doyne who built the children's home for orphans and underprivileged children of West Nepal. It is primarily designed to cater to a holistic learning space , and living space for the children, supplemented by a permaculture farm,a women's centre and center for learning for the local community.

The school provides 400 students with health care and nutritious food most of which is grown in their own farm, and employs around 50 people, including teachers, staff, a principal, vice-principal, health administrator, counselor and a health technician. The curriculum supplements the Nepali national curriculum with additional teaching and learning in literature, art, theater, music and sports.

The U-shape rammed earth and bamboo building opens up to the western sky, thus shading harsh summer sun which can cross 40 degrees Celsius (over 104 F). Every classroom has wide open and shaded play spaces that merges into a beautifully sculpted landscape. Nature seamlessly blends into the classrooms spaces.  These spaces create a natural wind draft,  eliminating the need for any artificial cooling or heating. Play spaces are held with intricately webbed structurally designed bamboo trusses which invites the children to climb and explore the strength and beauty of this amazing plant, while having tactile experience of the material. 

Landscaped pathways circumambulate the building, seamlessly knitting the various outdoor elements such as the jungle gym, vegetable gardens to sand pits. The play ground  is juxtaposed with a bio diverse food forest. It is designed in such a way that students can harvest vegetables that are used for lunch. Water harvesting and clean energy sources such as solar panels are used for cooking. Rain water are harvested in a beautifully sculpted ferrocement jar.

All the building materials are harvested locally. The colorful soils for rammed earth walls are borrowed from the surrounding mountains. There is no cement stabilization, because that would inhibit the walls breathing capacity and it will not make the materials reusable in future.  Walls are coated with casein, that is milk protein, in order to make them water resistant. Earthen walls are reinforced with synthetic mesh and rebars to make the structure earthquake resistant.

The trusses, beams and rafters are made from locally sourced bamboo. Bamboos are strong, ductile and light, akin to the properties of carbon fiber, thus making the building earthquake resistant. Bamboo are sourced from Chitwan, where communities have planted them along the river banks, which creates buffer from annual floods and provides extra bucks for the community.

School has become an inspiration for the whole district. As this relatively rural district is urbanizing, the building will act as a reference point for new construction. It is creating a new building typology that seamlessly integrates the tradition with modern sensibility.