Singapore non-profit’s low-cost Malaysian school design transforms education for migrant children
Etania Green School in Sabah, winner of a sustainability award, shows how good design can help inspire a new generation of young thinkers
It’s hoped it will be the first of 30 schools to be built for thousands of stateless children marginalised because of their legal status
Etania Green School has been built for stateless children in Sabah, Malaysia, with the help of a Singapore-based non-profit design studio, billionBricks. Photo: Fernando Gomulya
Architect Robert Verrijt has a proposition: designing for the poor shouldn’t equate to poor design.
“There’s a mindset among some who work with the marginalised, that these people should just be happy with what they’re given – no questions asked,” says the Dutch-born chief design officer at billionBricks, a Singapore-based, non-profit design studio.
The Etania Green School sits next to a river. The land around the school is prone to flooding. Photo: Fernando Gomulya
But children – no matter their socioeconomic background – need quality education, and campus design plays a crucial role in achieving this.
So design was at the forefront of Etania Green School, a proof-of-concept, scalable prototype built for stateless children in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, who otherwise would have no access to education.
Never mind that the location is remote, the site is flood-prone, and the budget barely stretches to a shoestring, this school ensures everyone gets an equal education and opportunity.
In March, Etania Green School won the sustainable project category of the Trends Excellence Awards for Architecture & Design, presented in Mumbai by Home & Design Trendsmagazine.
Etania was officially opened in January, but classes have been running at the school for around one year. It is envisaged as the first of 30 schools to be built across Sabah for the thousands of children marginalised because of their legal status.
The 350 students aged five to 13 are mainly from migrant families who moved to Malaysia, often illegally, to work on palm oil plantations. Defined as “stateless”, with no recognised nationality, these children are denied basic human rights, such as schooling and access to doctors.
When Verrijt, who is also co-principal architect at Mumbai-based firm Architecture Brio, met billionBricks’ co-founder Prasoon Kumar five years ago, Kumar was already “toying with the idea” of building a school for such children.
The Etania Green School is built on five decommissioned shipping containers. Photo: Fernando Gomulya
“We thought we could introduce good design to the concept, and so we got together,” Verrijt says.
BillionBricks primarily provides housing for the homeless, and this is its first completed school. But Kumar, who is also an architect, sees a “tremendous” connection between housing and schooling in terms of breaking the poverty cycle.
Etania Green School stands on a riverside site that has a history of devastating flooding. “The destruction of the original rainforest, and its replacement with palm oil plantations, has increased the flood risk even further,” Verrijt says.
Therefore, like much of Borneo’s vernacular architecture, the school is high-set. “However, the classrooms here are lifted off the ground in an unconventional way,” he says.
Five decommissioned shipping containers, sourced from a nearby port and donated by a logistics company, provide the foundations. Their strength minimises the structural components, and stabilises the framework, while the space inside the containers is used for storage and toilet facilities.
Classrooms on the upper floor are made from recycled timber sourced cost-effectively from a local construction company, with the galvanised-iron roof also gifted to the project.
Children use the school like it is a jungle gym. Photo: Fernando Gomulya
The layout comprises a long veranda, which forms the spine of the building, leading to various open learning spaces and connecting smaller classrooms. Students have a choice of access, via a staircase, two ladders, or a mound made of dirt excavated from the site.
The classrooms are oriented in an east-west direction to minimise heat gain from the sun, and to capture an air draft from the river. Solar panels provide the electricity, and the roof catches enough rain for all water needs.
The school’s co-founders are Dr Kathryn Rivai, who has a PhD in education curriculum, and Romy Cahyadi. In addition to corporate sponsorship, the school’s construction was financed by donations from friends of the co-founders who are based in Indonesia, Singapore and China.
“Some people might say, just teach these children the basic 3Rs – reading, writing, and arithmetic – but I’ve never believed in that,” Rivai says. “I give them the full works – an education like any child in Hong Kong would receive.” And with that, comes quality of life, she adds.
Did its designers achieve their goal of a highly designed, sustainable learning environment created from bare bones?
Absolutely, says Verrijt. “You can see that from the way the children behave, and the feedback the teachers give. In other schools, kids tend to run away as soon as the bell goes. This building becomes a gravitational point, where they stay and play, taking shade underneath the classrooms and dancing around the columns, like it’s a big jungle gym,” he says.
“I think that, apart from designing functionally, and using materials that are sustainable, the result can also be seen in the pride that these children take in their school.”
Rivai agrees. Before, classes had been held in a cramped, hot and dusty shophouse, where the children were unfocused, and the teachers tired easily. The change since the move has been “amazing”. The whole learning dynamic has shifted, she explains.
“It’s breezy, it’s by the river, you look out onto greenery – and you have this beautifully designed building, which follows the cultural aesthetic of Sabah, of which the children are so proud.”
The school has made a huge difference to the way the children interact with teachers, dress themselves, and learn, she adds. The parents, too, congregate there “to just sit around and enjoy the atmosphere”.
As for billionBricks’ involvement, Kumar concedes that some donors question the need to contribute towards a school. “They say that if you invest in teachers, rather than a building, children can learn under a banyan tree,” he says. “But we believe everyone should be treated equally. And we would not send our children to a school that is run under a tree.”