AFLEC Secondary School architecture project is the thirty-three article on projects from practice. This project is an investment in a secondary school in one of the UAE cities in the Al Garhoud area. The area is one of the oldest areas in the city in terms of planning. The land uses include low-rise houses, hotels, and in recent years hotel apartments. In late 2000 the planning authorities permitted some other land uses like schools and hospitals as well as mixed-use developments. The architecture is a mix of various architectural tendencies from world architecture styles like modern architecture, and deconstruction style, and mainly the buildings design in this area is a non-style architecture.
One of the city sports clubs, mainly the football club Al Naser, pointed their financial investments towards using the large area of the open space near the club to increase club revenue and to use it for the development of the club and operations. Many plots of the nearby open areas of the club were invested in social clubs, and community buildings for locals as well as schools. That is the main reason the AFLEC School project was initiated in 2010.
School architecture and development projects are one of the most complex processes in the country due to many reasons. First, the Ministry of Education requires certain qualifications of teaching staff and management and administration to run the school. The funds required from the developer to allocate for the organizational structure running the school is large so needs a special type of developers. International educational standards must be applied by the school developer because most programs are international programs. Finally, the school design must adhere to international architectural and local architectural standards for development.
The school design is a tendency of modern architecture and historical character type from the Islamic period represented in some of the architectural elements of the external form (curved tower shape stairs). The external form is of simple modern architecture with simple materials. The orientation of the internal space is towards the inward of the plot to provide safety and feasible usage in terms of function and noise disturbance. The architecture of the plans shows simplicity in design, easy circulation, and clear paths to exits and entries are required. See the external school photo below.
As shown in the ground floor plan includes the administration spaces and rooms for the management of lower grades of the school classes and the cafeteria due to the demand for services and direct daily connection to the main road for supplies. The ground floor plan has many main exits to the inside courtyard of the school for gathering in the brake and this zone becomes covered after construction and handover for external use. See the ground floor plan below.
The first-floor plan is completely used for the classes of the intermediate age and high-aged people to use. The floor is designed to have multiple exits to the internal courtyard and exits to the main entrance setback for emergency and daily usage. See the first-floor plan of the school below.
The architecture of long-span spaces requires a special type of arrangement in structure as well as architecture. Most functions that require long spans like laboratories, libraries, and computer rooms are usually located on the highest floor of the building here it’s the second-floor plan. Other rooms are reserved for classes of the highest age students at the school and the many exits to the courtyard and external setback places. See the second-floor plan below.
The elevations of the school architecture are a mix of a modern architectural tendency and borrowing from Islamic architectural elements. The elements are circular representing the corners of the Islamic fortes and castles in the Middle Ages used as a dominant staircase. The other parts of the elevations mix the simplicity of the strip windows of modern architecture and the simple materials used in most buildings of the modern architecture style. The window shades are of modern materials of aluminum and painted concrete. These are shapes and forms simulated from the modern architectural style.
The school architectural projects require a special design in terms of height and clear space for internal use suitable for this type of function. The number of occupants of every class is 60 students which requires, in terms of mechanical and electrical, design requirements of natural light combined with artificial light. The amount of air in class requires several fresh air changes per minute and that relates directly to space heights. The MEP services and types of equipment passing through the corridors affect the adjacent class’s space height. Many parts of the services like drainage pipes and AC ducts produce noise in operations that require engineering treatments to control hazardous situations that occur in operations like fire in the false ceiling. See the section drawings below.
The AFLEC secondary school architectural projects were a challenge since its initiation and the start of the consultancy contract. School architectural projects are rarely given approval for developers only if the developer is connected in terms of education to any school brands like the GEM series of Schools in the region or the American school brand in the region. The authority approval is given to high officials and VIP people in the country or developers of school brands to protect the country’s education system from bad teaching and unqualified people creating a decline in education quality in the city. The school architecture projects were spread out in all the countries in UAE due to its direct link to the private sector the high demand for it and the shortage of available classes for education especially in the secondary school sector.
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