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Architects: TONG YUAN DESIGN
- Area: 121740 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:TIME RAW
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Lead Architect: Liqiang Guo
Origin. Established in 1958, Jinan Licheng No. 2 Middle School has grown from a typical rural middle school to a well-known Qilu school as the condensation of the educational culture amid China's economic and social progress. Planning on the Caishi campus began in early 2020. Because the campus is located at the foot of Hu Mountain, the good natural ecological environment and humanistic environment inspired us to consider designing a green and low-tech campus that can integrate into nature.
Pathway to low-tech implementation. The campus owner determined a building volume of 120,000 square meters according to school scale requirements (60 classes). Faced with such a high demand for construction, we devised three levels of implementation approaches towards the goal of green and low-tech design: The most crucial issue is to accomplish optimal volume arrangement at the level of spatial pattern and land usage and to reduce construction, operation, and maintenance waste caused by improper layout. The second is to develop a space skeleton based on the variable concept of intense and flexible building usage in cold regions. Finally, it is appropriate for the combined application of green technology by the requirements of specific space energy savings. The low-tech plan is the primary means of space energy saving driven by architects. It is a comprehensive strategy for energy conservation in equipment and facilities. It has the properties and benefits of energy conservation at the source. Because the primary cycle of school buildings is to avoid winter and summer vacations (freezing and extremely hot periods), most of the seasons are transitional seasons between spring and autumn, and the centralized opening time of air-conditioning appliances and other equipment is limited, the low-tech strategy is essential in the campus planning and design.
Pattern and concealment. The building should establish a sense of harmony with nature in the early cognition when the architect examined the site for the first time and came to the front of the mountain, and utilized the technique of "cover, retreat, hide, and give way" to shape the natural sense of the architectural form, presenting a modest demeanor. Following multiple rounds of comparisons, it was determined that the architectural planning pattern fully integrated with the site, organized the building layout along the contour line and sub-platforms, incorporated a portion of the volume into the earth, embedded the building into the ground, and reduced the amount of earthwork transported abroad. After completion, the building expands horizontally and lies at the foot of the mountain, giving way to the city's corner area and allowing a corridor for seeing the mountain from within the city, drastically weakening the sensation of self-existence. The building's hidden layout is a low-carbon method that perfectly fits with the surroundings. It is rooted in the earth and adapts to the site's wind and heat conditions. The thick and heavy volume on the north side of the courtyard scale is formed to resist the cold wind, and it is opened to the south to form a ventilation corridor. The semi-outdoor space integrates the mountain into the campus, and the elevated corridor platform also creates an active outdoor activity space for teachers and students.
Adaptation and skeleton. The future function combination of the school is growing more complicated and versatile as the education system undergoes a further transformation. As an excellent educators, We deeply felt the principal's expectations for the ambiguity of campus space functions in many exchanges, which puts forward higher adaptability requirements for campus space design, which not only meets the needs of current use but also meets the needs of the future expansion of new functions. This is also a type of sustainable architecture application model. Basic and shared buildings such as the library, music theater, GYM, and canteen are arranged in the central axis area of the layout, making them the core space for public activities and maximizing the functions of these buildings to provide teachers and students with the most convenient access to these public resources. In the future, classrooms and multi-functional rooms will undergo mutual metamorphosis, and huge areas such as libraries and parks will be able to host a variety of activities. Each group follows the site's surrounding organization, surrounds the public area, and produces a three-dimensional space skeleton on the campus's edge—Student Street. The daily living, dining, learning, communication, and other functional rooms of teachers and students are linked in series from different elevations. This space skeleton not only serves as a traffic connection, but also as a space corridor to intensively connect the main public spaces of each unit, providing more indoor activity space in cold winter, and setting up sunken courtyards at space transitions. Skylights provide adequate lighting and ventilation conditions.
Form and construction. The concept of space energy saving is inextricably linked to the look of the shape. The layout of the building is dense and small. According to energy classification, the high-performance teaching space is located on the south side, the auxiliary space with general performance is located on the north side, and certain activity areas are also converted. The shape of the facade, in addition to the semi-outdoor non-functional space, represents the response to the climate. The multi-level dirt-covering space also provides a fertile ground for outdoor activities. The facade employs an open dry-hanging system of white and red clay slabs, with staggered joints and oblique laps producing a horizontal and continuous texture sensation. The clay's warm feel mirrors the metal perforated sunshade. It is a sustainable substance. Solar hot water and photovoltaics are also put on the student apartment's roof, maximizing the usage of renewable energy.
Caishi Campus' low-tech green design is centered on the use of passive technology in planning layout and architectural design, and it has made some sustainable design attempts in terms of idea and strategy. More than two years of work have essentially realized the original planning concept, but for a variety of reasons, the architect was absent from some aspects of the overall design, and there are still regrets about the completion of some spaces, and the optimization of the spatial form of the green connotation has not been carried out continuously, is also worthy of reflection and summary. Because the quality of campus buildings and environmental spaces has a subtle influence on students, it is especially vital to convey the concept of sustainable development through the campus environment. The creation of a sustainable campus has far-reaching implications for society as a whole. It is not only a vital vehicle for schools to conduct excellent education, but it has steadily evolved into an effective method of environmental education in the contemporary context.
