Friday, April 29, 2011

Architecture Students Have 'Designs' for Sudan

Students and faculty of Texas A&M University System's College of Architecture meet with staff from the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture to show their designs for Rehab Nova -- a multi-purpose rehabilitation, health and agriculture facility proposed for southern Sudan. (Texas A&M College of Architecture photo).

COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M University System’s College of Architecture and Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture have collaborated to produce designs for a new multi-purpose health, training, and agriculture facility for southern Sudan.

“The Rehab Nova-International multipurpose facility is designed to be built in three phases,” said George J. Mann, AIA, a professor of architecture at the college who worked with the students in developing their designs. “The facility would include land for agriculture, livestock, boarding houses, guest houses, labs, classrooms, and facilities for physical rehabilitation, occupational therapy, and vocational rehabilitation.”

Mann added the facility also would have offices and a health clinic to help orphans, women, and the physically disabled in the rural Sudanese communities of Birka and Bor.

Designs for the facility were developed by architecture students after doing extensive research on Sudanese culture, climate, materials, and methods of construction, and incorporating these elements into their designs. Five students – three men and two women – participated in the architectural “studio” with each developing their own individual design for the facility in one of the designated communities.

Read more here.

No comments: