Every small deed counts, especially when influential people take the lead. Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs, has become a quiet icon of philanthropy and is once again making a difference. While they say every good deed should remain a secret, it’s nearly impossible to keep such efforts under wraps these days. Recent news reveals that Powell Jobs, whose net worth of $15.5 billion stems largely from Walt Disney and Apple shares, is championing a unique initiative in collaboration with Spanish architects.
The project, spearheaded by architects Débora Mesa and Antón García-Abril of Ensamble Estudio and Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, aims to revolutionize both architecture and education.
They are building modular schools in an industrial warehouse in Pinto, Madrid, with the goal of transforming education for thousands of students in Barbados. These modular schools, akin to prefabricated kitchens, are being constructed in a 16 by 60-meter warehouse where individual components are assembled.
Barbados, with its urgent need to expand its network of 68 public schools, will benefit immensely from Powell Jobs’s innovative two-story, equilateral triangular modules. Designed to withstand the harsh Caribbean climate and hurricane-force winds, these school buildings are not only safe and durable but also energy-efficient and termite-resistant.
The structures are quick to build, easily transportable in shipping containers across the Atlantic at minimal cost, and can be installed on flat ground with ease. The use of equilateral triangles allows for infinite combinations, enabling the creation of larger, adaptable schools.
A prototype of the wooden structure, currently under construction in Pinto, provides a glimpse of what’s to come. The final design, however, will be a fully functional, complete school building for Barbados. Her commitment to education is longstanding. She has donated tens of millions to innovative K-12 schools, supported underprivileged youth through College Track, which she co-founded in 1997 to help first-generation college students.
She even launched XQ: The Super School Project, a $100 million initiative that funded 10 groundbreaking schools across the U.S. Trust Laurene Powell Jobs to lead by example with her modular school project that not only promises to transform education in Barbados but also set a new benchmark for sustainable, scalable solutions in architecture and philanthropy.
