LAS CRUCES >> The old school structure in Quertaro, Mxico, was a tarpaper and pallet shack with a dirt floor. It served as both an overflow school building for a school too small to hold all of its students and a community medical clinic for the doctor who visits each week.

Over the summer, 14 students in New Mexico State University's Engineering without Boundaries helped replace the shack with a proper schoolhouse.

Two NMSU alumni, two faculty members and one staff member joined the students in the project. Kenny Stevens, NMSU associate professor of engineering technology, serves as adviser to the Engineering Without Boundaries group, formerly known as Engineers Without Borders.

NMSU's Engineering Without Boundaries built this two-room school in Queretaro, Mexico, as the group's summer 2014 service project. (Courtesy photo)

"We sent a team of two students down over spring break and surveyed the spot and said they thought it would work," Stevens said. "The students spent the rest of the semester designing a two-room schoolhouse one big room, and a small room on the side that might act as the doctor's area. We put in plumbing, so it will have water, too."

Engineering Without Boundaries' mission is to bring students, faculty and community members together to improve the daily lives of developing communities through sustainable infrastructure.

The students designed the school building from scratch and put in green features such as clerestory windows, which face south and are placed high on the walls to allow in light.

"The school is up at 9,000 feet, so it's cold, even though it's down at about 20 degrees latitude," Stevens said. "It's pretty chilly. It gets down into the low 30s in the winter. The advance team texted back and said to tell everybody to bring jackets because it's getting down into the 40s at night. We oriented the building so they could make use of the south-facing wall and get some thermal mass heating in the winter."

The building was constructed from locally sourced supplies and made mostly of cinderblocks. The team hired a local mason to help with the project.

"The students are great, but they're what you call 'unskilled laborers,' so we hired somebody local to help with the ins and outs," Stevens said. "We also had sweat equity opportunities, so the community also put in five or six people per day to join with the students on the project. It gets to be a pretty tight group."

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NMSU students redesign school building in Mexico