Designing a School in Mali Provides Real-World Education for Architecture Alumna

Recent DAAP graduate Mary Althoff is pursuing a challenging first design assignment. She is designing and will help construct a school in the African nation of Mali.

Both when a University of Cincinnati student and now that she has graduated, alumna Mary Althoff, 25, of Geneva, Ohio, has and is pursuing challenging international opportunities.

While completing her architecture studies in UC's top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP), Althoff spent a six-month cooperative education experience in India where she worked on a project to construct a new community center in a village destroyed by the tsunami of 2004.

(Cooperative education, or co-op as its commonly called, had its global founding at UC in 1906. It's where students alternate quarters or semesters in the workplace with quarters or semesters of paid, professional work directly related to their majors. UC's co-op program is ranked in the nation's Top Ten by U.S. News & World Report.)

According to Althoff, it was that experience in India that "really whetted my appetite for working abroad and also got me interested in development work. I now plan to pursue a career in 'humanitarian architecture,' and my current service in the Peace Corps is an excellent place to begin."

Yes, Althoff joined the Peace Corps right after graduating from UC in 2007. She is currently volunteering with the Peace Corps in the village of Tongo, in Mali, West Africa.
Mary Althoff
Mary Althoff in the village of Tongo in Mali, West Africa.

Althoff says that her DAAP education has really helped her in her work, especially with a current project to design and build a sustainable, six-room school house for the children in the village.

Mary Althoff with rendering.
Mary Althoff with a rendering of the school the village hopes to build.
"One great lesson I learned at DAAP," she remarks, "Is always use a straight edge. The design drawings I made for the school house were drafted by hand on the floor of my mud hut, using the cord of my iPod to reach the vanishing points!"


More importantly, she says that DAAP taught her the importance of the built environment in shaping not only physical landscapes but in shaping the way we live. It's a lesson she is now applying to her own new environment in Mali.

"The current schoolhouse in my village is made out of sticks and leaves, and most of the walls have fallen apart, leaving just a roof for the classrooms. It not only affects the students' ability to learn but is a powerful lesson for them regarding the importance - or the lack thereof - placed on education," explains Althoff.

Children in the village of Tongo.
Children in the village of Tongo where DAAP alumna Mary Althoff is a volunteer.
Currently, the village of less than a thousand people can house only the most minimal educational efforts in the current wall-less structure. Second- and third-grade students attend class in the morning while third- and fourth-graders attend. Without more space, it's impossible for students to move on with their education into higher levels.


That is why she is dedicated to the school-construction project. "Education is the only long-lasting way to combat poverty. It's easy enough in development work, or any work, to keep very busy putting out metaphorical fires. But to do something that will have lasting impact - like building a substantive schoolhouse - will be tremendously satisfying."

Importantly, the project will emphasize local materials, sustainable design and community participation. The school's design will integrate a large-scale rainwater harvesting system, a children's garden and four composting latrines. The rainwater system will help the school to weather the area's lengthy dry season and use of local materials, in lieu of importing cement, will reduce the building's environmental impact (and its expense).
School perspective
A perspective of the school DAAP alumna and volunteer Mary Althoff hopes will be built in Tongo.

The DAAP community, the wider UC community and other can also join with the community in the village of Tongo and with Althoff in completing the project. Visit this special Peace Corps link in order to make a tax-deductible donation, or cut and paste this link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=688-284