After super typhoon Lando made landfall in Aurora last October 2015, thousands of families were displaced. Billions of pesos were lost to damages in agriculture and infrastructure, which affected the whole country. Such a scenario remains a reality for an indigenous community in Sitio Dipontian in Casiguran, Aurora.
Fastenopfer or the Swiss Catholic Lenten Fund, a Catholic NGO in Sweden and DKA Austria, tapped Palafox Architecture Group to design a school for the children of the Agta community. The school is envisioned to be disaster-resilient and sustainable. Its four-sided or quarto aguas roofing provides resistance to strong winds and also acts as a catchment for rainwater harvesting. The collected rainwater will be kept in a storage drum and distributed through a water line connected to the toilets for flushing as well as to perimeter faucets for cleaning and watering of plants. The school may also be used as an evacuation center.
Each of the six classrooms is 31-square-meters in size. Adjacent rooms may be combined into a larger space, if needed, by opening up the accordion wall separating the two rooms. The whole structure is supported by 18 wooden posts, 0.30 meters in diameter each seating on a 0.40 x 0.40 meters concrete pedestal. Exterior walls are made of wood planks, while the interior uses Sawali walls. The flooring is made of simple lean concrete 0.30 meters high from the natural ground. While the ceiling will be kept high for future use as a loft, intended for storage and sleeping area.
The groundbreaking of the school was held last March 15, 2016 following a ceremony led by the Tribal Center for Development and the Agta community. Target date for completion and turnover of the school to the community is on June 2016.