POD House / LIBEN Design

POD House / LIBEN Design - Interior PhotographyPOD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior PhotographyPOD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior PhotographyPOD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior PhotographyPOD House / LIBEN Design - More Images+ 15

  • Architect In Charge: Qian Li, Nicolas Bai
  • Design Team: Nicolas Bai, Qian Li, Fang He, Huifang Sun, Yinmei Li, Jiawei Tian
  • Client: Shanghai Municipal Kindergarten
  • Lighting Consultant: Xiu Yang
  • City: Shanghai
  • Country: China
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POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography, Windows, Facade
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong

Text description provided by the architects. Urban renewal is becoming one of the important roles in urban development. In addition to community and business renovation, some schools in the city center are also faced with the problem of land shortage and unable to expand. Therefore, it is worth thinking to solve the problem how to make effective transformation and utilization of the existing campus site for extension of functions and more spaces under constraint conditions.

POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong

The project is located at a kindergarten in Xuhui district of Shanghai with enclosed L-shaped. The south and west sides of the base are intensely close to the wall and adjacent to the residential area. The internal facilities are placed at the east side, while the north side is the internal road of the kindergarten. The original function of the project is the abandoned laundry.

POD House / LIBEN Design - Interior Photography
Activity. Image © Lei Dong

It is asked for making the laundry be rebuilt into a space for students’ demands of learning and dancing. Complying with some requirements, the building boundary is not allowed to be over the original campus wall, and the height is not allowed to be out of the original building height. Those external pools, rockery, and other facilities are needed to be retained. Covering an area of 120 ㎡, this is a typical project like casting masterpieces in the pigeonholes.

Sectional detail

Owning a live nature, children love running and exploring. The design retained the original L-shaped enclosure and implanted a pod space from the perspective of their activity characteristics. The space embraced by arc-shaped walls fully releases the children's energies and provides the possibility of diverse activities for both teachers and students. Its external negative space gives auxiliary functions such as storage, changing and washing. On the southwest side of the building, a courtyard was made outside of the pods which can solve some problems of ventilation. At the same time, a simple climbing net is installed above the courtyard, which not only meets safety protection, but also is a small adventure corner.

POD House / LIBEN Design - Interior Photography
Interior. Image © Lei Dong
POD House / LIBEN Design - Interior Photography
Activity. Image © Lei Dong

The roof has kept the shape of pods, setting up a circular roof track and a playground for children. Two center skylights provide sufficient lighting for the pea house. A small climbing slope is designed around the circular skylights. A pod-shaped skylight serves as a glass path for children to explore. The relationship between the sight lines from skylights also makes the dialogue in the space more vivid and interesting.

POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography
Skylight. Image © Lei Dong
POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography
Roof terrace. Image © Lei Dong

The design sets three different special-shaped mirrors named Doumiao Jing on the wall to meet the needs of dancing room. The shape of the mirror echoes the curve of the plane and the specular reflection also amplifies the size of space. Those indoor different-sized round holes together with the specular reflection of stainless steel and circular skylights of furred ceiling blurred indoor boundary, meanwhile increased dimensional interest.

POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography
Activity. Image © Lei Dong
POD House / LIBEN Design - Exterior Photography, Fence
Activity. Image © Lei Dong

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Project location

Address:629 Jianguo west Road, Tianping Subdistrict, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 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: "POD House / LIBEN Design" 23 Mar 2020. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/935852/pod-house-liben-design> ISSN 0719-8884

Main entrance. Image © Lei Dong

上海市市立幼儿园“豌豆屋” / 上海力本建筑设计事务所

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