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yangri academic centre, yangri, nepal
Shocked by the devastating 2015 earthquakes, the charity Himalayan Life (HL) decided to expand their activities to reconstruction. A leader in their programs elsewhere, Sonam was compelled to return to his village to assist in reconstruction. Due to significant loss of life in the disaster, the people of the Himalayan foothills region north of Kathmandu were traumatized. Most buildings had collapsed and survivors needed help from outsiders. The locals recognized that their dry-stacked stone masonry buildings were the cause of the high death toll and so they put together shacks of corrugated steel, recovered from roofs, lived in emergency shelters, or rebuilt squat houses with tiny windows. They feared collapse, and dwelled in darkness.
f2a connected with Himalayan Life to help guide reconstruction efforts. Similar to our work in Romania, the Yangri Academic Centre (YAC) project came to involve the introduction of wood, a structural material better suited to seismic resistance than the vernacular dry stone masonry.
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The leader of Himalayan Life has extensive professional experience with micro-hydro plant construction. One of the first tasks HL took on was to repair Yangri’s micro-hydro electric plant. The headrace had been damaged by the earthquake, so concrete and steel work was required. While improving the headrace, HL installed a second penstock and turbine, doubling generation to 54 kilowatt, providing electricity via transmission lines to villages as far as 1000 vertical meters above. The re-establishment of electrical power likely accelerated earthquake recovery efforts across the region.
HL then moved out of their wheelhouse and into a power house - construction of one at least. We assisted them to pioneer seismically-braced construction on this pilot project, a power house to shelter Yangri’s hydro-power generators. The building served to demonstrate new materials and techniques: post and beam timber-framing, steel cross-ties, and the use of corrugated metal and fibreglass as cladding materials. All of the materials used were locally available and practical for use on the remote site.
The local carpenters, encouraged by recovery progress, put their skill to work on the power house. When complete, the generators were day-lit through a fibreglass east wall built of local timber, and cross braced with steel rod. -
Encouraged by this first example, we began design to suit HL’s vision for a boarding school near the power-house. The school was to occupy the less-used areas of agricultural land in the river bottom. We drew a basic masterplan that evolved to include four classroom blocks, 3 dormitories, a cafeteria and kitchen, and a hockey field. The boarding school complex formed a sheltered court yard with views of the valley from each of the dormitories and classroom pods.
Building on the principles used for the power house, we designed a first classroom pod. The YAC pods were of linear design, with four classrooms all externally accessible via two covered breezeways. Classrooms were 6.5m x 7.8m with clearspan roofs. We achieved the 6.5m classroom span through the use of site-built glue-laminated timber at 2.6m o.c. each spanning 6.5m (21’-4”). Glulam, now common in Europe and North America, allows young trees to be used to achieve large spans. In Yangri the glulams allow timber sized to be hand-carried to be re-assembled into beams for long spans.
As plywood is not available in Nepal, we relied on the common corrugated steel, fastened at regular intervals, for shear strength, while providing generous openings. Site-built operable windows cover 3/4 of the south facade of each classroom. The new building is oriented to control sunlight, offer ventilation and ultimately to provide a safe and illuminated learning environment. -
As the project progressed, we were happy to see the people of Yangri re-building their own houses with laterally-braced wood framing, and to hear of propagation of the construction technique up higher in the mountains. Sonam, the site superintendent at the Yangri Academic Centre, was largely responsible for propagation of the new techniques. He taught his team of carpenters and also his village community. With no plans and guidance from us, the a Yangri Valley new vernacular emerged. We see this as the best possible outcome of our aid work.
We reasoned that, with positive progress in Yangri, bright and energetic youth would find an education of letters and craft, and would engage in the challenge in reconstruction. Instead of finding poverty, crime and pollution in Kathmandu, we hoped to provide opportunities to redefine their regional culture and maintain agricultural practices. -
But we had to recognize our ignorance of many factors in the area. While Himalayan Life has longtime experience in the area, we are only just learning about Nepal, its people, and its customs.
On June 16th, 2021, a flash flood struck Yangri. The flood was caused by heavy rains and the apparent collapse of a glacial lake in the high mountains above. Luckily Sonam recognized a change in the river and raised alarm in the middle of the night, evacuating hundreds of students before the flood washed away four of the buildings on the campus. The flood has made us rethink the intervention. Perhaps the best use of the flood-prone valley lands is agriculture. As we contemplate Himalayan Life’s newest ambitions to build a new ridge-line campus, we’ll take care to evaluate the impact of our use of timber on the forests, and the social impacts of our first intervention in the region.