- 04. April 2023
School and Kindergarten
Atelier oï visiting the campus construction site
At the end of March we welcomed two special visitors to the Smiling Gecko Campus: Aurel Aebi and Tamara Decroux from Atelier oï, the architects responsible for the Middle School and the House of Culture and Music.
Aurel Aebi, Founding Partner and Tamara Decroux, Project Manager at Atelier oï with Smiling Gecko Cambodia Director Sokleap Ngon. One of many valuable conversations the team had during their stay with us.
What the architects were able to examine: The basic infrastructure preparations for the Middle School building (bottom right in the picture) and for the House of Culture and Music (top left) a few weeks ago, the ground works are now more advanced. Above the Middle School you can see a circular hole, several meters deep, which is the future water reservoir, in which the immense amounts of rainwater will collect during the rainy season.
Saves costs: We use the countless truckloads of soil that we gained when excavating the reservoir for the massive landfill on which both the Middle School and the House of Culture and Music will be situated. A necessary construction measure, as otherwise the buildings would regularly fill up during the rainy season.
What’s next: Equipped with the essential plans, we are confident that we can start with the actual construction of the Middle School at the beginning of May, which we want to open in the course of the next year. The completely new drawings show an exterior view and a view of the inner courtyard of the two-storey building.
The House of Culture and Music, for which we have commissioned a second local construction team, will hopefully be ready as early as January 2024. More about the project can be found here
Now it really means one thing above all: keep your fingers crossed that the upcoming rainy season doesn’t thwart our plans during the construction phase so that we can implement our ambitious goals as planned. We will keep you posted.
