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Architects: Fieldevo Design Studio, linboyang architect
- Area: 1900 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Wenya Studio
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Manufacturers: Chiujou, Innotek, Rainbow House, Semi, tenco
Text description provided by the architects. From children’s view:
Explore by instinct: Feelings of ambiguous space will be engraved in children’s memories. They sense and react to space with unique viewpoints as undefined uses allow numerous possibilities for children’s creativity. Since their bodies and mind are rapidly growing, the design imagines a place that provides for more inspiration and exploration on every scale.
Indescribable atmosphere: All things for children are fascinating and most of the time they keep observing all the details of the surrounding environment. The design prioritizes the need to provide a secure and active place which the children can engage in a variety of activities.
Process of learning to express: What is the point of learning? Children try to express their idea in words while making mistakes in the process of articulating all the content to form a complete sentence. Like the content in the brackets, the design plays with this spatial concept which makes one wonder how is the comprehending experience when all the content and brackets are arranged in a unique way?
Architectural statement: The architecture merges with the environment and allows people to experience new perspectives.
Occasional encounter: By breaking the rule of symbols, we can imagine in multiple ways. The alternative combinations provide children infinite possibilities in little space. They can recall the atmosphere but not the specific plan.
In-between space: There is a series of the plan which is designed to mostly create atmosphere and less about the building itself. We learn about the sense of extension, transparency, and universal space emphasized by Mies van der Rohe and the order of numbers and hierarchy of architecture from Aldo van Eyck. However, the Japanese architect Kazuhiro Kojima has reduced the power of architecture furthermore. In his studies of the school typology, furniture became the most important object to define the space, while all the walls are L-shaped and always open to a corner. All the activities are juxtaposed under a big roof. We learn a spectrum of flexibilities of in-between spaces from these projects.
Wrinkles in the universal space: The power of architecture gives way to furniture arrangement maximizing the sense of horizontal extension and activities. However, the urban environment of Hsinchu City is already a landscape without order. It is not settled enough to place a light, transparent and flexible architecture in this messy environment since similar scenes will keep repeating themselves. To confront this situation, we found that a little curve on the wall will make a subtle enclosure and free the space from homogeneity. We use the effect to reengage the campus environment and enhance the quality of space in traditional Taiwan campus planning.
The project focuses on the layer of in-between spaces like Kazuhiro Kojima but introduces some random sculptural quality in the universal space to distinguish different learning corners. So while we may not remember the spatial arrangement, we can still be impressed by the moving experience in the public spaces.
The current situation of kindergarten in Taiwan:
Because of the reduction in the birthrate, more and more schools fill the program of kindergarten directly into the empty elementary school classroom. However, do kindergartens really need classrooms? We suggest the empty classroom could be another use such as community college classroom, and kindergarten should be more engaged with little corner and natural environment. The whole architecture is a combination of learning corners. From exterior to interior, children can run around the curve walls and gather at their individual favorite spots. This project provides not only a better learning unit but also reshapes a better environment of the campus.
Spatial strategy:
Create several corners: Instead of following the grid, we bend the end of the wall to create different characters of space. All the elements induce the activities like the random little holes on the eye level of the wall which allow children to stand tiptoe to take a look etc. The activities and the unexpected randomness make the space lively.
A balance between efficiency and fluidity: Since it is important to prevent children from colliding to the edge of the wall, we designed a rounded space and reduced the sharp edge of the space. All the structural walls are the combination of the straight line and curve to meet both the need for storage and characterized corner. The geometry of the space is the balance between efficiency and fluidity.
The flexibility in a sculptural scene: It is contradictory that this project combines a sort of sculptural quality and flexibility. This contradictory idea allows unpredictable activities to happen in the sculptural background. Through this kind of design, we remain the customized freedom for users and maintain a formal influence to reorganize the environment of the campus.
