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Architects: Yamazaki Kentaro Design Workshop
- Area: 530 m²
- Year: 2014
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Text description provided by the architects. This nursery school in Sakura, Chiba was planned to accommodate 60 pupils. Seiyu-Kai, a local social welfare firm specializing in elderly care facilities approached us for this project. The overarching concept for this plan started with an idea: “a nursery school is a large house.”
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Surrounded by mountains and forest, the southern area of the site rests on a gentle slope. Putting this topography to use, we designed the school room to resemble a large set of stairs.
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One unique feature of this “large house,” for example, is that a 3-year old child is in the same room as a 5-year old and these children of different ages can interact in the wide, one-room space. Additionally, should a 3 year-old child be sleeping while a 5 year old child plays nearby, these differences in rhythm reinforce the "domestic" qualities of this "large house." Keeping in line with Seiyu-kai's longstanding (26-year) philosophy, we made it a priority to minimize the number of blind-spots within the room in order to keep safety measures as unintrusive as possible.
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![](https://images.adsttc.com/media/images/5539/bacf/e58e/ce9f/b600/0237/medium_jpg/floor.jpg?1429846726)
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Utilizing large sliding window frames along the northern and southern faces, along with the space created by the slope, ventilation is created as a breeze draws in from the south of the structure, passes through the forest-like interior pillars making its way upwards before finally blowing out across the terrace on the northern side.
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A small pond on the southern end which gathers rainwater as well as water from sprinklers installed on the southward-slanted roof also contributes to the airflow as the water is absorbed into the wind that blows into the structure. This was part of a comprehensive plan to create a space that was inseparable from the environment that surrounds it. We believe that in pursuing the original concept of a “nursery school as a large house” we achieved something not unlike the houses in farming communities that surround it.
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Our goal was to create a space that was not only fun for the children but via blending into the nature around it, foster an experience that was greater than the sum of its elements.
Note: This project was originally published on August 19, 2015
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