The Amazing 3D Schools To Be Built In Madagascar For Half The Price Of The Usual Building Cost

In a world where education is a luxury, philanthropists have been looking for ways to educate the less fortunate kids. Learning is a right. Unfortunately, some have been denied of that very right.

While there are willing volunteers and teachers, building a school comes with a hefty price tag. Hence, these people are limited and as much as they want to help, the means just isn’t there.

What should they do? It seems as if a 15-year-old Chinese immigrant who was adopted as by the founder of MapQuest has found the perfect solution. She’s always dreamed about giving education to all the children out there. It had always been a pipe dream of hers and now, she’s fulfilling her dream to use 3D-printing to help more children gain access to education in Madagascar.

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Maggie Grout is a philanthropist at heart. Her charitable personality pushed her to think of ways to help kids. Now, she has put up a nonprofit organization called “Thinking Huts.” They’re now organizing fundraisers to break ground on a series of modular, honeycomb-shaped schools. These education edifices are powered by solar panels and if this dream comes to fruition, this would be the world’s first 3D-printed series of schoolhouses.

Grout knows that hundreds of millions of children don’t have schools to go to. This worldwide problem has been her main concern. She believes that one of the best ways to solve this conundrum of hers is through lowering the construction costs of schoolhouses.

She organized a pilot of Thinking Hut in Madagascar. She collared all the costs and the entire schoolhouse expected to cost just around $20,000. Grout was recently interviewed but the Smithsonian. In it, she details how the costs came about and how this is so much better than using the traditional construction methods that the world has known. She discovered that the 3D-printed buildings are actually much cheaper when the project is scaled.


In other words, the first schoolhouse may cost $20,000. And like the world works, if things are done in bulk, the cost goes down. Hence, If  but the more houses that are built, the cheaper they could actually become.

With the recent pandemic, construction worldwide has come to a halt. With Thinking Huts, they’ve started to make the dream a reality. The first hut construction is expected to begin in the summer on the university campus of Ecole de Management et d’Innovation Technologique in the city of Fianarantsoa. The place is home to around 200,000 people on the south end of the island.

As for the 3D-printer itself, the hut should stand around at 6.5 feet. The materials and the equipment will be provided by the Thinking Huts’ partner, Hyperion Robotics. This is a Finnish 3D-printing company that’s reputed to build a mix of different materials and elements. A few of their past projects include building columns, patio furniture, and yes, even artificial coral reefs.

The plan for Hut v1.0 reads, “We will use locally-sourced materials, remaining conscious of our environmental impact, and implement more additive manufacturing processes as the technology advances, adapting to each community’s environment. Initial plans call for solar power, internet access, desks, chairs, and tables. The Hut will have a secure door and operating windows.”

The hut’s features include pockets of space on the outside of the walls. These spaces can either be utilized for vertical farming or artificial rock climbing walls for the students who will be in it. The exterior of the hut, on the other hand, will be decorated with traditional Malagasy textile patterns. These are local materials such as corrugated tin or wood carved that have been carved by the local artisans.


Their Thinking Huts will be built in honeycomb shapes. This allows new huts to be added onto existing ones if they do need to eventually expand to help more. Thinking Huts’ architect, Amir Mortazavi of the San Francisco Studio of the same name, says that he wants to maintain local aesthetic appeal. He feels that need for the building to blend naturally into its environment. Hence, he feels that it’s important to consider the color of the 3D-printing material that they’ll be using.

Mortazavi talked to Architectural Digest about this building plans and shared, “Deforestation is a major issue in Madagascar, which holds a biodiverse ecosystem with many endemic species known only to the island. We will be making a reconnaissance trip there shortly to find the most sustainable supplier for our furniture supply in the near future when it’s possible and safe to travel there.”

In order to build several schools, with travel, electrical and plumbing, and school supplies, Grout’s charity—a 501(c)3—has managed to raise $125,000 to date. For someone who’s just as young as 15 years old, this is already quite a feat.

 

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