KING ORPHANAGE
Ft. Liberte, Haiti
An orphanage facility on the northern coast of Haiti, housing 50-70 homeless children. The compound includes a dining hall, boys and girls dressing toilet areas, four bedroom areas, and a house parents' apartment. The design centers around a central courtyard, reinterpreting historical tropical architecture. Indigenous building materials like vent block are used in a more holistic manner, maximizing cross ventilation. Passive ventilation is also assisted windcatchers, secondary structures on the roof that funnel the breeze from the sea inducing stack effect through operable vents in the concrete slabs below. They also shade the topmost concrete slabs, drastically reducing thermal heat gain that would radiate to the bedrooms below.
