African project
Streetlight Schools
innovative educational model, and the fact that the school will be a living laboratory
for green education and construction in the same space, people have been very willing
to donate materials and professional expertise.”
Material donations include reclaimed carpet flooring that was originally made
from old fishnets; low-VOC paint; reclaimed tiles; and reclaimed insulation material
(produced from re-cycled plastic fibre) for thermal and acoustic application
throughout the build.
Sustainability in practice
Several innovative measures, employed because of the extremely low budget,
contributed towards the Green Star SA rating, and significant cost savings were
achieved by ensuring that the design was inherently materials-efficient. This included
using dry-wall offcuts, recycled wooden pallets and reclaimed wooden flooring in
the library construction; bricks and rubble from the demolition of existing internal
structures to build a new entrance ramp and stairs; re-using broken and half bricks as
paving; and using reclaimed corrugated sheeting as ceilings in the bathroom stalls. All
new OSB boards in the atrium construction were placed to minimize offcut waste to
almost 0%, and all timber support beams fit at standard length to reduce wastage to
almost 0%.
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