The Application Of ’Modular System’in Reconstruction And Extension Of Primary Schools In Dai Autonomous Area

Since the elementary education is the enlightenment of individuals, it plays an important role in the system. In some ethnic minority areas of China, currently, lagging economics, lacking of infrastructure, and the limitation and inefficiency of local designers are all negatively effecting the quality of buildings and the spatial environment of local primary schools. Therefore, facing the great demand of reconstruction and extension of those schools,’how to provide relatively high-quality design under time pressure and limited funds’becomes an urgent problem to be solved for local design firms which are lacking of designers and have limited design abilities.Modular architecture design, as a high-efficiency method, can be a potential solution. Most published research about it has been particularly focus on technology and housing projects. A few cases about its application in education architecture are only looking at master planning and individual building design of university campus. There is a lack of related research in primary school design. For its use in primary schools in ethnic minority areas of China, there is hardly any precedent.During my internship in a local design firm and field trip in’Xishuangbanna’ Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province in the south of China, I have investigated and analysed the specific needs for on-site primary schools. Based on it, combining my research about modular design, complying with the standards and requirements of national code, I have designed a modular planning and facade-design system for these local primary schools. Through flexible applications at different scales, this system has not only generality, but also great diversity in various projects and sites.In the case of ’Menghan Central Primary School’and some other cases of reconstruction and extension, I tested the feasibility of this system in local context and further verified its flexibility and efficiency. It illustrates that modular design can be an effective solution for local design firms to deal with the large amount of reconstruction and extension projects of local primary schools.