Two years ago, in February 2014, Orkidstudio broke ground on a new girls’ school in Kenema, in the eastern region of the country, employing as many as seventy men and women from the local community each day. The Swawou Foundation sought to provide extensive new learning facilities for up to 120 young girls from the local area. First set up in 2009 by Ahmed Jaward and Kirsty Wood, it was the only school around that didn’t allow corporal punishment, and is producing young girls with confidence and intelligence unparalleled elsewhere. The building was voted the ‘best school in Sierra Leone’ on a national radio station before it even had a roof on.
The 6,300-sf Stevens Library at Sacred Heart Schools in is the first library in the USA and the first school building in California to achieve the International Living Future Institute’s Net Zero Energy Building Certification. It was part of the PG&E ZNE Pilot Project which also found it consumed less energy than it generated and is on track for LEED® Platinum and Petal Certifications.
The school unit is part of Montpellier’s dynamic for development, the aim being to connect the city with the sea. The school is set on a small triangular plot of land, in keeping with the urban policy for densifying a new residential area.
With its conception and its internal organisation, the reconstruction of the Froelicher high school in Sissonne (France) fits into in a sustainable approach and takes account of the new urbanisation of the site. The project forms urbanizes and builts a coherent educational ensemble, dense and dynamic, suitable for studying and give flourishing students as required the last educational directions.
The new facilities of the Nova Cumbica State School replaced existing buildings that were in bad physical conditions, undersized and that presented poor urban relations with their immediate surroundings.
Location: Street Baixio s / n, Guarulhos, São Paulo, Brazil
Photography: Pedro Napolitano Silver
Team: Hereñú + Ferroni Architects / Eduardo Ferroni and Pablo Hereñú (authors), Renan Kadomoto, Bruno Nicoliello, Shine M. Braga, Domschke Carolina, Carolina S. Yamate, Felipe Chodin, Henrique Arruda and Natalie Tchilian (employees)
M3architecture designed Mount Alvernia College’s new La Verna Building, Anthony Building and La Foresta Garden.
After being commissioned to complete the College’s master plan in 2011, the firm proposed a school based around three gardens; a community garden, a garden for gathering and a recreation garden.
The London based office AUDB has just completed a university classroom building in Izmir Turkey as a part of their on going commitment to research and development projects in the region. The building has also won the prestigious A Awards in April 2016.
Mundo Verde is a bilingual, sustainability-focused public charter school located in the District of Columbia. The school’s curriculum is based in expeditionary learning, where students learn through the active exploration of the world around them. Awarded a shuttered 1920s-era school building and site by the District in 2013, Mundo Verde had a direct question for the design team: “How can this redevelopment and addition project teach our students to be global stewards?”
We can talk about the perception of space as an educational proposal on its own, since education is mainly based in human contributions, but also on environmental ones, that affect the development of children’s potential, as well as the interaction between them and the environment. In order for a nursery, with children aged 0-3, to be able to ease or speed the learning process, it needs the building to be capable of suggesting new perceptions to children, and at the same time to satisfy the educators necessities. For these reasons the centre must be:
A place of suggestive and easily recognised circulation, with galleries to avoid crowds and show the child the relative position of spaces.
A clean and secure place, where neither the materials nor the installations involve the minimal risk for children.
A peaceful place, where everything, from the materials to its design, absorb noise and reverberation.
A bright place, where it is possible to enjoy as much natural light without sun glare, as the transformation of some spaces to generate shade.
A suggesting and stimulating place, where light, colour, sound, vegetation and space are elements that make it easier for the child to learn and play.
The design for the extension of the Alliés de Chavannes nursery school draws on its context within the landscape and its integration within the site. The three new volumes that house the extension connect to the longitudinal circulation of the existing building in such a way as to allow them to be perceived as separate pavilions. The existing building is reconfigured to become the school’s spine. Distinguished by two types of metal cladding – galvanized steel and anthracite zinc – the new volumes provide a visible distinction between the original building and its extension. The new volumes are organized to ensure fluidity and a programmatic organization in harmony with the existing functioning of the school, logically inserted between the trees and providing views of the surrounding vegetation. Elevated on steel stilts and with facade openings offering each space a variety of orientations, the extensions allow pupils to imagine that their school is a tree house!
Awards: ArchiDesignClub Awards 2016, First Prize ” Enseignement / Petite enfance et élémentaire”, Building of the Year Awards 2016 Archidaily, Nomination
Surface area: 810 m² total, 500 m² refurbishment, 310 m² extension
Calendar: Studies : 2012-2013, Delivery : May 2015
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