hinge 275_58
<QSPKFDUGJMF°D[FDISFQVCMJD>Photography by alex shoots buildingsBuilt anew in a neighbourhood to materialise soon, this new kindergarten sits
adjacent to a historical structure and some parkland, a few residential houses
(with more to follow) and an art school for teenagers. Its context, therefore,
is a mishmash, to say the least. But it stakes out its own ground and identity
with verve.The building reads as a long box but is actually broken down into wings, with a
solid, square headpiece trailing two narrow arms enclosing an internal open-
courtyard space at its upper levels. This protective diagram seems appropriate
for the scheme’s users – young toddlers who spend regular time playing
outdoors. They will also play inside, on top of, and around the edges of, the
building itself. It is ultimately something of an apparatus for playing on.The principal characteristic of the design is its distinctive skin, a wrapping of
corrugated, translucent fibreglass panels set upon a visible wood frame. Thismaterial envelops the entirety of the school – not unlike scaffolding seen on
new construction sites, which it clearly refers to. But it is more carefully set
out and detailed than those familiar coverings, and lends the elevations a
whispery, diaphanous quality that instantly makes the building a bit mysterious
and interesting. Because there are walkaround terraces left in gaps between
this framed skin and the actual enclosure walls – spaces accessible to the
children – the school comes alive with varisized shadows climbing, circling,
moving all around and over it. As the ‘inner’ layer of walls beyond the first
membrane are also clad in translucent panels, the effects are doubled, as it
were, and when the elevations open up in large apertures, you see the second
skin behind, with its own windows of a different size, and start to understand
the scheme’s main idea.The ground level is more massive and thick, and holds the sleeping areas,
dining hall and some practical service space. The playroom is on the floor