Freedom is a basic right of young children and a basic psychological need of children. The "Guiding Outline of Kindergarten Education" points out that all kinds of educational activities in kindergartens should strive to provide children with free and autonomous activity space and time, so as to meet the needs of children's freedom and autonomy and promote the development of children's autonomy. What kind of space can give children freedom? The spatial scale of kindergartens and the layout of indoor and outdoor scenes have a significant impact on whether children can move freely, and when facing different venue conditions, different problems will be encountered when carrying out kindergarten design and transformation:
How to create a more interesting activity environment for children according to local conditions?
In the case of tight land, how to ensure that children have sufficient outdoor space?
In the city, how to create a natural environment for children?
If the city has wind and sand all year round, how to design an indoor activity space that meets the needs of children in the park all year round?
In the beautiful countryside, how can kindergartens better integrate into the environment?
Every architect has their own different answers to these questions.
1. Kensington International Kindergarten Plan Architect, Bangkok
The purpose of the project is to use the design of the space to stimulate children's spatial imagination and perception, to find their own play space, which has an attractive curved shape, so that it can attract children and many unexpected activities occur because of its unpredictability. The transparent curved glass curtain wall becomes a slight division between the inside and outside, allowing children to learn and play indoors and be surrounded by nature. The kindergarten has two floors, the second floor is superimposed on top of the first floor in the same free-flowing arc volume. The eaves extend outwards to form a special rain corridor shape.
2. Japanese Clover House / MAD
The Four Leaf Clover House in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a home school where children from the surrounding area study. The original site is a century-old traditional Japanese building. MAD's design preserves the main wooden structure of the original house and adds a white "tent shell" on the outside, thus forming a future space surrounded by an open and integral interior and exterior, allowing children to learn and grow while having a past, present and future.
This design fully reflects the emotional needs of the space users: on the one hand, it can reflect the owner's respect for the family emotions brought about by the past of the house, and on the other hand, it can expose children to this brand that carries collective memories. Opposite the new building, there is a new three-storey building connected to the old wooden structure, including the living room, kitchen, bathroom, studio, etc., to meet the daily operation of the kindergarten, the needs of the kindergarten operation staff and family members.
A new "tent shell" and old wooden construction make the interior space even more interesting.
3.KM kindergarten / Hibino design
The original site of the project is a abandoned kindergarten, the owners hope to revitalize it, and the designers want to create a mobile environment that naturally triggers children's movement.
A portion of the building's mass is integrated with the playground via a ramp, and the playground can be gradually reached from the roof. This makes it easy to push the children upwards. The designers also used textile materials to create classroom check-in boards, carpets, and other items, as well as some walls, and integrated them with games. When children interact directly with these textile materials, they can better understand the different plants.
4. Raffles Kindergarten and Early Childhood Centre/Space Building
Shacheng, the central town of Huailai County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, is more than 550 meters above sea level, with high sunshine intensity, especially in winter, the wind and sand are large, and the sun is so bright that people can't open their eyes. When the wind is strong, even adults can't stand outdoors, and the children here can spend only a few hours outdoors in a year. The designer proposed a super-scale according to the venue to meet the indoor activity space available to children in the whole park in all seasons. The corridor has become a special presence in this kindergarten, and the width of the corridor in the kindergarten is extended to 6 meters, forming an atrium. With a length of more than 80 meters, it connects 15 class activity rooms to meet the needs of the kindergarten children here to play, exercise, and even ride activities.
5. Colorful day nursery in Babenhausen, Germany Ecker Architekten
Located in the southwest of Babenhausen, adjacent to the historic city wall façade, the building is a famous landmark of Babenhausen. The kindergarten, which provides education for 130 children under the age of 7, was built in such a distinct venue and against such a rich historical background that it forms the center of the structure of locations and paths between the various buildings, and from this geographical center forms a "new center" of architectural complexity. In this way, the area surrounding the city walls was significantly improved, and its construction and use became more explicit.
The new building consists of four different buildings, each separated by a gap in the building: two floors for children aged three to six, with a restaurant and art gallery on the north side, a sports classroom in the middle, a single-storey nursery for children aged 1 to 3 on the south side and a two-story main building managed by Amtsstrasse Kindergarten. The transparent structure of the central structure connects the north and south wings as the new center and forms the center of the complex together with the children's restaurant.