ABSTRACT
Architect Francis Kr, who was born in Burkina Faso, set up his Berlin-based practice, Kr Architecture, in 2005. In 1998 he set up his own charitable foundation, Schulbaustein fr Gando e. V., Bricks for Gando, raising money to help fund the making of the school, and began transferring his skills back into his home community. The mix of traditional Burkinab building techniques and materials and the modern engineering-led methods he learned in Europe at Technical University of Berlin, has enabled educational, cultural and sustainable needs of many communities in Burkina Faso and elsewhere to be supported through his work. The Gando primary school, which won an Aga Khan Award for Architecture in 2004, is made of mud bricks taken from local soil, with some cement to strengthen them. To keep office going Kr also takes on commissions in Europe and elsewhere, such as the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva and Zhou Shan Harbour development in China.
