Armenia

Cooperation for modern and seismically resistant model school design

Project context

Armenia is located in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. In 2016 government of Armenia prioritized school buildings for seismic strengthening or reconstruction. Armenia had at the time about 1,400 schools, 1,000 of which needed strengthening and reconstruction at an estimated cost of USD 1.2 billion. With Asian Development Bank (ADB) support, the government consolidated investment programs from several development partners into one priority School Strengthening and Renovation Program. The program supported the implementation of the National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction by – improving school seismic safety to reduce casualties and damage in schools.

At the same time the school design principles relied on guidance documents from the Soviet era and required updating. In fact, the whole education system needed modernization including the training of teachers and the modernization of the curriculums.

Activities

The project was a part of the Asian Development Bank’s Skills for employment in Central and West Asia programme with the objective of modernization of the whole education system. Below the specific activities of Finngroup:

• Coordination in Armenia with Armenian Territorial Development Fund (ATDF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF) and Head of Earthquake Engineering Center of Seismic Safety Investment Program (SSIP)
• Concrete proposal and recommendations in form of drawings and documentation for the improvement of school designs and their construction
• Training of local architects to clarify the ideas of modern teaching and modern school buildings
• Travel to Armenia to introduce recommendations and to provide guidance in design principles of rehabilitation of old schools based on modernization of schools to Armenian Territorial Development Fund (ATDF) architects
• Travel to Armenia to develop designs together with ATDF architects
• Review and comments to school designs prepared by the ATDF
• A package of material of educational trends, information on development of school design in other countries and documents showing results of international school design competitions

Year of implementation: 2016

Client: Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Results: Armenian architects trained and supported to design modern and seismic resistant school buildings

Impacts: Capacities of local architects built, safety and functionality of Armenian school buildings improved