Project Background: 102 classes, currently the largest nine-year school in Shenzhen. Shenzhen Foreign Language School Bao'an Campus, located in Bao'an District, Shenzhen, which is the development axis of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, is the first of the four famous schools in Shenzhen introduced by the district. The landing of the project has laid a foundation for the layout of “Shenzhen Foreign Languages School in the north and Shenzhen Bao'an Middle School in the south”, alleviating the dilemma of resource shortage of prestigious schools.
The land used for the project is divided into two plots by a community road, which was originally planned as two adjacent and independent schools, which incurred the potential danger of uneven distribution of teaching quality and resources. In order to realize space sharing, resource interconnection, and unification of school buildings and teaching standards, and out of the people’s nice vision of promoting education equity, the design creatively proposed to merge the two plots into one school, making an integrated campus of “one school with three campuses”. Through much communication and coordination, this strategy got from the planning department the approval of “transferring the upper and lower spaces of the community road by layers”, finally forming the largest nine-year consistent school in Shenzhen now, with a total of 102 classes and a super campus providing 4,740 learning quotas for the district.
Campus for resource sharing. As far as the design is concerned, the strategy of "double interconnection on the ground and underground" was put forward to alleviate the traffic pressure around it. The underground second floor seamlessly connects the two plots underground, and a two-story street platform connecting the north and the south is set up. Urban roads pass under the platform, and they do not affect each other. The original intention of the plan is to encourage teachers and students to organize activities and exchanges spontaneously so that the activities could be seen from the perspective of the city to create unique vigor and vitality for the district.
Vertical campus: vertical extension of huge volume with high density. The design strategy hopes to break through in the vertical direction within the cramped site, so as to achieve spatial diversification and maximize land benefits. The auxiliary functions of some auditoriums, gymnasiums, specialized classrooms, etc. were designed to be underground, which, in combination with a sunken courtyard and colored floor coverings, creates a free and soft space boundary.
Vibrant campus: a dialogue between people and architecture. The core of the courtyard conception is the deduction of the prototype of ancient theaters. Combining the podium and flag-raising platform with the design of outdoor stairs, the visual core of the courtyard is created, and the speaker’s perspective interacts with the courtyard and the side corridor of surrounding buildings, forming a three-dimensional super “theater”. The design creatively makes the playground get rid of the pure sports attribute and form a comprehensive activity space with centripetal quality and ritual feeling.
Community campus: a community-friendly school that cares about neighborhood relations. The design makes effective use of the cross-street platform to provide leisure space of shelter from wind and rain for the parents sending and picking up their children. The playground is placed at the junction of two roads, and the gymnasium and dormitory retreat to the city road to widen the sight distance, which ameliorates the crowded urban layout in the area. Continuous multi-level corridors, staggered stairs, and layers of platforms form a facade expression that combines virtuality with reality, showing the community a cheerful and outgoing, welcoming and integrating temperament.
