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Architects: BIAD
- Area: 96751 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Meng Zhou, Zheng Wang, Shaopeng Li
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Manufacturers: 中煤建设（ZhongMei）, 富思特（FIRST）, 达美（D-Mei）
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Lead Architects: Xiaogong Wang, Zheng Wang
Context. The campus is on the site of a former large-scale chemical factory outside Beijing's east Fourth Ring Road. It is now a growing urban community, a new home to tens of thousands of citizens. To design a 12-year basic education campus for 72 classes in this area, we hope that the campus with its unique form, on the one hand, responding to the new demands of educational reform can transfer temperature and motivate learning, on the other hand, the monotonous urban rhythm caused by a large number of homogeneous residential buildings in the surrounding area is gently confronted and actively adjusted.
Learning Community. The basic learning units of the campus are organized to create a learning community that feels like a home and a neighborhood and promotes communication and sharing.
Superposition. Under the common restrictions of site size and sunshine conditions, we arranged the campus superimposed: the second to fourth floors are the basic learning units, while the first and underground floors are the public learning floors (containing experiments, art, societies, etc.), which not only facilitate students to go back and forth between different functions but also break down boundaries and create conditions for an interaction. The public learning floor extends the publicity to every corner of the campus, and the roof platform expands the outdoor activity space, making it easier for students on the higher floors to have recess activities.
Underground Space. The site contains a huge pit dug to remove contaminated soil from the chemical plant, and the scale of the site cannot match the surging demand for the schooling of the surrounding school-age children. Then we take advantage of the pit, the public teaching floor, sports, swimming, performance, and kitchen are placed underground, and the large spaces can be opened to the community in different sections and regions.
Courtyard. We used the sunken courtyard to solve the lighting, ventilation, and fire evacuation of the underground space. And with the help of connectivity, overhead, landscape, etc. to eliminate the sense of closure and depression of underground space. Different courtyards are given different themes, such as amphitheaters, campus fairs, recreation events, mobile exhibitions, etc.
Point of View. We try to make the campus decentralized and flat, encourage communication between people through the transparency and fluidity of the space, so that learning can happen anytime and anywhere, and give more control of the campus back to learners through the inclusiveness and universality of the space, so as to stimulate their thinking and creation. We hope this campus to be seen as an attitude, as well as an action, that can inject power into learners and communities.
