This week’s curated selection of Best Unbuilt Architecture highlights educational architecture submitted by the ArchDaily community. From preschools to higher education institutes, this article explores how architects shifted towards fostering individual creativity, critical thinking, and exploration, and presents projects submitted to us from all over the world.
Featuring a secluded kindergarten in the Icelandic mountains, a vibrantly-colored playschool in the industrial city of Shenzhen, and a Florentine high school with a flow of natural sunlight, this round-up explores how architects prioritize student well being and comfort in spaces that promote productivity, learning, and creativity. The selection also includes preschools, high schools, and academies in France, United States, Egypt, Kazakhstan, and Israel.
Read on to discover 10 curated projects of preschools, kindergartens, schools, and academies from around the world, along with their descriptions from the architects.
Kindergarten Combloux
SPACES Architecture + Boris d’Archi
The project uses two architectural systems to resolve a partially unfinished and confusing situation in the center of Combloux. On the one hand a mineral pedestal supports an alpine meadow that belongs by its physicality to the ground and by its materiality to the entire landscape. On the other hand a small hamlet which participates in the construction of the village by bordering it in the northern part with a register of constructions familiar both by their size and their ornament.
In a Green Hollow Kindergarten
The breathtaking Icelandic nature and heritage of the building traditions have been a source of inspiration and leading design parameters for our design proposal ‘Í grænni lautu’. The circular shape of the building has many readings; for one, it is an including shape which shelters the kids from the harsh wind, and gives them a place of democracy and a visual connection throughout the building. It also refers to the cycle of nature, a cycle economy where nothing is wasted.
Wuzhou Primary School
Set in the dynamic context of Shenzhen, Wuzhou Primary School is designed for innovative learning. The city’s focus for learning is shifting towards fostering individual creativity, critical thinking, and open exploration. To support this change, Wuzhou Primary School is conceived as a three dimensional ‘Learning Landscape’. Based on Malaguzzi’s concept of ‘the environment as the third teacher,’ the school is a continuous field of diverse learning spaces, connected through blurred boundaries and tightly packed into a dense urban setting.
Urriðaból
sastudio + huldajons + exa nordic
The jury has unanimously chosen the proposal where the building blends between nature and the architectural
language of the neighborhood, minimizing its impact on the context. The design addresses the plot’s slope by gradually lowering the building, fitting all children facilities on a single floor. It privileges access to the outdoors, and provide all homerooms with direct connection to the indoor and outdoor playgrounds. The whole concept focus on providing a safe and warm environment for play and growth.
New Scientific High School ‘’A.M Enriques Agnoletti’’
A new scientific high school for the metropolitan area of Florence is a design challenge that inevitably can be resolved at a formal level through a synthesis of the emergencies of the territorial context. But it can also be a challenge for the territory in itself that must establish strong synergies between the institutions that govern it to improve the building, school/cultural and work of the area.
School in Cascais, Portugal
The ambition of the project is not only to create a smart receptacle for learning, but also to blend in the urban fabric in a relevant way. All the elements of the project are present somewhere in the town: The corridor surrounding all functions is de-signed like the old city streets, the indoor and outdoor paved floors reminds the Portuguese praça, the overall volumetry has the qualities of a real city block. Simplicity, flexibility and functionality.
International School
The International School, located in The New Capital, aims to unleash children's creativity and learning spirit by implementing a fresh new ideology that would guarantee the utmost benefit to the educational community. Advocating for “Brighter Education,” the school's colorful facade acts as a form of teaching aid to the students. The School focuses on the learning environment by penetrating direct sunlight to all classrooms, adjusting the ventilation system, and granting the community easy access among both interior and exterior spaces.
Neal Math & Science Academy
Thanks to a $40 million donation by AbbVie to North Chicago School District 187 for the rebuilding of the middle school, the project represents an opportunity to transform the area comprised predominantly of Latino and African American families that have seen little to no investments for decades. The vertical orientation of the design was inspired by the community’s desire to no longer be invisible. The five-story building reflects the pride and strength of the community, proudly standing tall together.
The Hebrew Language Academy and Museum
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The Mother Language narrative was employed in the visual and architectural means of the museum's design - an ‘Architectural Mother Language’. The term refers to local and familiar architectural elements and materials that are designed to create a homely and familiar experience for the visitor and thereby strengthen their identification with the museum's theme. The galleries are designed as a series of display spaces with transparent passages and balconies between them, resembling the courtyards between the Israeli residential blocks, providing natural light and creating the connection with nature, the landscape and the adjacent Promenade.
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New Reimagined Architecture School for Central Asia
SARAA | Sadykov Architecture Atelier & Associates
This project is aimed to introduce a new private architecture school in Almaty, Kazakhstan in the existing Soviet factory building, revitalizing its fabric and spaces, and bringing to it new life, function and meaning on the level of neighborhood, city, country, and Central Asia. Shifting from a sterile corridor-based and classroom approach of teaching and learning to a more creative, collaborative, and open-space layout will bring a new level of communication, contributing to the quality of the learning environment.
HOW TO SUBMIT AN UNBUILT PROJECT
We highly appreciate the input from our readers and are always happy to see more projects designed by them. If you have an Unbuilt project to submit, click here and follow the guidelines. Our curators will review your submission and get back to you in case it is selected for a feature.
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