We are thrilled to announce that Collège Amadou Hampaté Bâ in Niamey, Niger has been awarded a 2024 RIBA International Award for Excellence, an affirmation that transformative architecture is possible even where resources are not abundant.

Article 25 is the first ever NGO to win this prestigious award. The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has been recognising outstanding work in the built environment for more than 180 years. RIBA’s international awards are architecture’s highest global accolades, celebrating buildings from around the world that demonstrate visionary thinking, design excellence and social impact.

Providing education facilities for 1,200 students in a country with some of the lowest literacy rates in the world, Collège Amadou Hampaté Bâ is built with beautiful local laterite stone that is adapted to the hot climate of Niger.

Laterite has enough thermal mass to slow the build-up of heat during the day and is more breathable than the cement blocks ubiquitous in modern buildings in West Africa. As it is cut from the ground with hand tools and left to cure in the sun for four weeks, its embodied carbon content is negligible. It is also very robust. “What we needed was a material that would stand up to sandstorms and teenagers,” said Bea Sennewald, Director of Projects at Article 25. “Both of them cause a lot of wear and tear.”

The buildings use passive design principles to maximise natural ventilation. With the classroom blocks oriented to catch the wind coming from the north, the breeze flows through metal louvres in the north and south walls. A double roof further enhances the cooling effect: the lower roof enclosing the spaces is formed of earth brick jack arches; the upper roof is a flying steel structure tilted so the opening between the two roofs is smaller at one end. This creates what’s known as the Venturi effect: pulling air through the roof cavity and cooling the classrooms below.

The passive design strategy has proved an enormous success. “The buildings feel noticeably cooler than the other buildings, and the numbers bear this out,” said Toby Pear, Senior Architect at Article 25 and project architect for the college. “By collecting temperature data in and outdoors over several months, we have observed that even when filled with up to 40 students the classrooms stay significantly cooler than outside, with temperatures up to eight degrees centigrade lower by the mid-afternoon.”

Many thanks to MHA Structural Design and Max Fordham for their generous engineering contributions, and to the main contractors Afrique Univers for their high-quality work and valued cooperation throughout.

A huge gratitude to all of Article 25’s More Than a Building partners, who help our projects come into being.