Dongyuan Yuejing Kindergarten / Chengdu Tianhua

Curated by 韩爽 - HAN Shuang

Architects: Chengdu Tianhua
Area: 2700 m²
Year: 2019
Photographs:Yang Yuan, Shengzhao Shu
Manufacturers: JiangSu Frontek Ceramic, Shanxi jingfeng glass
Lead Architects: Xin Nie, Shengzhao Shu
Landscape Design: Aoya Design Group
Interior Design: Li Yizhong Interior Design
Structure Design: Sichuan Zhouyu Huazhou

Text description provided by the architects. Xi’an Huayu Dongyuan Yuejing Kindergarten perfectly integrates the city's lamplight and ancient aesthetics rhyme with modern architectural conception and exquisite material selection to create a luster addition to the ancient capital for thousands of years.

Dongyuan Yuejing Kindergarten / Chengdu Tianhua - Image 3 of 28 — architecture figure. Image © Yang Yuan

The project is situated in the west of the Third Ring Road of Xi’an City, on the Xixian new district development axis. The site is narrow and irregular. Restricted by the site configuration, the architectural volume is bound to break from conventional thinking. Designer inspired from the form of multi-round mass study of random blocks stacking, through the combination of several blocks in an unconventional way, to configure this free and flexible architectural space.

Red brick, as a traditional building material, represents the precipitation of culture and history. Its unique material attributes endow this cultural architecture with unique disposition.

Although the traditional brick-laying method can present the sense of culture and history, however it’s unable to effectively protect the cleanliness and flatness of the building surface, which is far from the fine appearance pursued by the project. Therefore, one of the key targets of this project is to investigate the balance with the material selection and fine appearance.

Dry-hanging terracotta brick is the material that not only possesses all material properties of red brick, but also ensures the fine quality of appearance. Through different bricklaying methods such as staggering, hollowing out, concave and convex, the façade have achieved richness of architectural expression.

On the night falls, the LED slowly light up, the hanging stairs volume gradually shows its distinctiveness and becoming the focal point of the whole building. The fritted glass breaks the dullness brought by conventional frosted glass. Its crystal and transparent appearance forms a strong visual contrast with the warm and dense red brick that metaphorize the new shoots blooming out from the trunk of history.