Kuska is a school in Ollantaytambo, a town in Peru’s Sacred Valley that sits 2,800 metres above sea level, between Cusco and the ruins at Machu Picchu. It’s also where one of our directors, Quino Holland, grew up. We’ve been working pro bono with the school on its new campus in an ongoing capacity.
The school teaches across three pillars: interculturality, environmental sustainability and interlearning. These ideas shape the brief as much as the curriculum. The design responds to how the buildings meet the landscape, where the materials come from, and how students move between inside and out.
We’re designing the campus alongside the local community, using traditional materials and construction techniques from the region. The aim is to set the buildings into the landscape rather than over it, and to build in a way that the community can maintain and add to over time.
Beyond this one campus, we want the work to serve as a prototype – a model for schools elsewhere in Peru that’s grounded in the culture of the region and built to support good teaching and learning.
The Kuska School,
Peru
Ongoing pro bono work on a new school campus in Peru’s Sacred Valley.
The school teaches across three pillars: interculturality, environmental sustainability and interlearning. These ideas shape the brief as much as the curriculum. The design responds to how the buildings meet the landscape, where the materials come from, and how students move between inside and out.
We’re designing the campus alongside the local community, using traditional materials and construction techniques from the region. The aim is to set the buildings into the landscape rather than over it, and to build in a way that the community can maintain and add to over time.
