Special Education School / Architectural Design & Research Institute of SCUT - TaoZhi Studio

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  • Group: TaoZhi Studio 
  • Building Design: Zhi Tao, Shoupeng Deng, Xiaoyue Su
  • Structural Design: Mosong Gong, Qianyun Wu
  • Electrical Design: Xiaofeng Huang, Tao Chen, Zhiwei Huang
  • Water Supply And Drainage Design: Hongjin Cen
  • Air Conditioning Design: Zhao Wang, Rong Peng
  • Energy Efficient Design: Lihua Zhao
  • Clients: Yuancheng city Government Agent Construction Project Management Office
  • Construction Unit: Guangzhou Machinery Construction Group Co., Ltd. 
  • City: Heyuan
  • Country: China
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Smoke curled up in the village. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

Text description provided by the architects. The special education, on the one hand, the school implements the teaching mode of combining “medicine and teaching”, at the same time, the design requirements of the relevant codes are more detailed and strict, which has a great impact on the design; on the other hand, due to the particularity of the educated groups, this kind of schools pays special attention to the work of management, which means safety by strengthening management. However, whether the students really need and like the homogeneous campus space, the fixed learning behavior and the learning place is a question needed to study.

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Playground. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)
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Inner courtyard. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

Since students who need special education feel different from other children and lack self-confidence, they have difficulty in normal communication with others, which leads to inferiority complex and autistic. Therefore, it is very important to develop students' normal communication ability for their physical and mental development. However, it is difficult to induce communication behavior in campus space which is homogenized and neglects the personality needs of students. As for it, we try to make changes and design the campus space that children really like in the project of school with special education of Heyuan City, Guangdong Province.

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Context

The "village" in the village
The project is implemented in Heyuan City, Guangdong Province, with 126 design degrees, in which the students are aged six to twelve. The base is in a high-density residential area at the bottom, and most of the children recruited by the school are from it. Two or three stories of closely related small houses and the winding village road are the elements most familiar to children. Therefore, the design starts with the prototype of "village", so the school is divided into a number of small buildings according to its function. According to the free arrangement of the boundary line of the land, the inward activity courtyard is made as much as possible. The low level and high-density campus space characteristic, the flexible body mass layout, and the surrounding village complement each other. From village to school, the natural transition of spatial scale will strengthen students' identity to campus space.

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Office building with causally arranged openings. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)
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Dormitory. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

It is worth mentioning that the southwest side of the original base has a small mountain package about 10 meters high that extends to a third of the area inside the site. As a result, the design wants to be based on the slope, so as to arrange various functional blocks on the hillside. However, a city road will be built on the north side and the south side of the land in the future and the mountains occupied by the road will be leveled. As a result, the hillsides within the land area are so small and isolated to be abandoned, which is really a pity. 

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The steel corridor. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

The "home" in the school
With the development of the city, the fate of the surrounding residents is unknown. The architectural language of the school tries to preserve the original memory of "home" for the children. For each function volume, it uses different slope top forms, which forms the unique small house, so as to enhance the marking. In the aspect of facade design, the exterior wall of the building is mainly white and complement the shallow hues of the surrounding residential buildings. The east and west walls also adopt square holes of the same scale as the residential buildings, which are scattered freely on the white walls. There is no lack of modern feeling while reflecting the characteristics of the houses. The small houses, connected by natural and gentle corridors, flow between buildings like winding village roads. 

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Comparison between ramp arcs and oblique roof. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

We reproduce the "slide" prototype in children's hearts by design, in which a shared spiral ramp at the center of the courtyard will be designed. The shared ramp is designed according to the unobstructed slope of 1:12, and the plane gradually shrinks in a spiral shape. The starting point of the ramp is directly opposite the main entrance gate, so that the children can see the ramp entrance as soon as they enter the campus. The ramps and corridors are like a chameleon lying on top of a building, and the ramp is the tail of a chameleon. 

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The spiral form ramp. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

As the morning sun rises, parents take their children down the ramp to the second floor of the classroom; after school off in the evening, the parents hold their children down the ramp to go home accompanied by the sun setting slowly. They learn by sunrise and rest by sunset. It seems to add a little bit of ritual to go and leave school, which is the most basic behavior. The ramp is originally designed for children to use, and parents also experience it since they had to pick their children up. For the circle of the ramp, it is the life of two generations.

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The art room. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)
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Parents and students slowly down follow he ramp. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

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Project location

Address:Shuangxia Road, Yuancheng District,Heyua,Guangdong,China

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
About this office
Cite: "Special Education School / Architectural Design & Research Institute of SCUT - TaoZhi Studio" 19 Sep 2019. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/905999/special-education-school-architectural-design-and-research-institute-of-scut-taozhi-studio> ISSN 0719-8884

The sunken stage area. Image © TaoZhi Studio(Xiaoyue Su, Ke Zhou, Changhao Jia)

广东省河源市特殊教育学校 / 华南理工大学建筑设计研究院 - 陶郅工作室

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