Hygiene Station is a design for primary school students to learn about and practice daily hygiene habits. Built in a remote village in Yunnan Province, the facilities replace a dilapidated toilet and shower annex for a school and dormitory; the school itself was built in 2006 as a Hope School funded by a Hong Kong foundation, providing education to 200 children from 7 surrounding villages. The children were reluctant to use the previous facilities due to the poor condition of the buildings. Commissioned by the Foundation, our challenge was to rebuild the facilities balancing low cost and durability for the rural context as well as encouraging the children to build up daily habits that can last throughout their lives.

The design provides a welcoming environment to attract the students, simple maintenance, and sensitivity to the environment. The project develops the following strategies:

1. Stacking two programmes into one building reduces the footprint and cost, and keeps the building away from the surrounding slopes.
2. Simple stack-effect was achieved using solar chimneys passing through the upper shower block to allow natural ventilation to the toilets below.
3. Reusing grey-water from the showers to flush toilets and reduce water demand.
4. Open circulation encourages students to approach the facilities, with a hand-washing basin as a focal point.
5. Materials express the honesty of the architecture; they are locally available and simple for the villagers to maintain.
6. Tapered building form respects the site geometry and invites the students to approach.