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Architects: RipollTizon
- Year: 2010
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Photographs:José Hevia
Text description provided by the architects. Consell Kindergarten is the extension of the School Complex “Bartomeu Ordines” in Consell, Mallorca (Spain). The new building is composed of: six classrooms (for children between 3 and 5 years old), one psychomotor classroom and a dining area including kitchen.
The design strategy intends to accommodate the whole building area in the ground floor and thus create a fluid relation between the interior and the play grounds. In addition to this, the need of creating the access to the building from the main avenue, and the need to establish a pedestrian connection with the existing building, led us considering a building to be crossed, to be traversed. The building will be a path.
We like to think on this'path' as the starting point of the project. A colorful route in zig-zag that drives the children through the building while it organizes the different 'classroom clusters' and functional areas.
During the design we developed a typology of 'classroom cluster' that is composed by: 2 classrooms connected together that are opened with a glazed facade and a porch towards a private courtyard that serves as the outdoor extension of the classroom. The clusters are oriented east, what ensures good natural light quality for each of them, and avoids the visual relationship with the north facade of the existing school building.
A roof follows and protects the'path' in its zig-zag route, rising to greet us at the main access from the Avenue, driving us to the classrooms, and offering us a sheltered area next to the playgrounds… a vibrant and folded shadow roofing that covers and embraces us borrowing the colors of the orange groves nearby.
