AMMA completes mass-timber modular school "that breathes" in Barbados

American architecture studio AMMA fabricated mass-timber structures in Spain before installing them for the Oceana Innovation Hub school in Barbados in a modular arrangement that reflects vernacular architecture.

AMMA, the new studio established by MASS Design Group cofounder Michael Murphy, was commissioned by nonprofit XQ Institute to create a model for a rapidly deployed school that would be resistant to tropical storms.

Murphy said the project will act as a prototype for changing the "whole nation's educational infrastructure" in the face of climate change.

"[The stakeholders] had a vision of transforming the whole nation's educational infrastructure, with the entry point as changing the physical built environment, more broadly, as an island nation facing significant impacts of climate change that they are not responsible for," Murphy told Dezeen.

Working with Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley and Louisiana-based studio OJT, AMMA developed a mass-timber system based on what's known locally as chattel houses – mobile wood structures developed in Barbados in the 19th century to house emancipated slaves and other temporary workers.

AMMA selected this form because of its history of rapid deployment and breathability and because its off-kilter, pyramidal form allows for heightened resistance to the hurricanes common to the region.

"The pyramidal, or many-angled, roof design helps in avoiding or mitigating significant wind," Murphy said. "This is a building that breathes."

"It really makes sense, climatically. It breathes naturally, has louvred windows, but also gets air through it. It doesn't pop open with wind pressure."

The studio worked with Spanish manufacturer WoHo Systems to create the glued-laminated timber structure, which is demountable.

The wood structural beams are visible in the interiors, which were left mostly open and terminate in a skylight at the apex of the CLT-lined pyramidal roof. The building was assembled in only 10 months.

Walls were built off the frame so that the water collection is internal, and the studio used an innovative structural system that has the cross-beams meeting mid-strut in order to maintain openness and modularity.

Murphy said that the project showed him the benefits of the triangular plan in modular configurations. The different volumes were stacked in order to create a "multiplicity of flexible spaces", he said, comparing the strategy to that of the metabolist architects.

"The triangular modular was a really exciting discovery for me – it functions like an Aldo van Eyck building or a metabolist strategy," he said.

"It allows for a multiplicity of spaces, from paired-down working groups to large, presentation-style dialogues. The building is adapted to close into these units or to grow."

Located on the beach in Bridgetown, one module of the school provides direct access to the ocean for hands-on learning.

AMMA worked with local artists to create a "courdoroy" facade system that conformed to the local colours of the city.

Murphy credited Mottley's outspoken record on climate change and her interest in the project as driving factors for the speed of the project's construction.

The studio is already at work on creating an expanded version of the school in elsewhere Barbados, and has been contacted for post-hurricane work in other islands such as Jamaica, which recently experienced a catastrophic storm.

Murphy worked with MASS Design Group for nearly two decades. MASS Design Group functions as a non-profit and has been responsible for projects all over the world, such as an agriculture institute in Rwanda and a recent factory conversion in New York.

Murphy said he wanted to expand on his work there while finding new ways for architects to work directly with influencing supply chains and funding mechanisms through investment mechanisms, a focus on supply change, and uniting the interests of local shareholders through projects.

"If we're really talking about how power is reproduced, and have to look at the financial backbone of a lot of the architecture that we admire and to democratise, to share ownership, to make more available, to reduce the cost of construction," he said.

"We have to transform the financial structure."

The photography is by Iwan Baan. 

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