Samer El-Richani

The school operates under the post-industrial cultural model of individualism, with spaces meant to empower and centralize the individual child in a progressive pedagogical model. This design sees the school developing through three phases expanding beyond the initial program of grades 1–4 by going up up to grade 12, following the Al-Salam School’s model (our major precedent in the region). Amal School exists on the perimeter of the camp, and, as a result, the ‘interface’ was carefully developed so that it could foster both the students and their refugee community. The interface consists of a small lecture space, a reading room, a book exchange system, and a computer lab (with internet). These facilities operate on a membership basis, in that if certain individuals aid in the construction, development, establishment, or maintenance of the school,  they are given access to utilize said facilities. The design is characterized by its environmentally adapted wind towers.

At McGill University School of Architecture