Schools

This is an interior design project of transforming a three-storey existing building to IBG Kindergarten in Beijing, China. The acronym in ibg stands for Inspiring, Bi-cultural and Green. While many emphasize on ease of maintenance and ease of use among adults as their requirement of design, but we prioritized children’s use and learning as our criteria. Supporting the educational philosophy of the school, the structure was filled with nature so as to educate the children amidst the enjoyable green which is a rare sight in this urban neighborhood. The roof was transformed to a ‘Garden of Movement’, that is a simple terrace garden to boost movement and exercise.

The implantation of the project was dictated by the will of an urban re-organisation of the plots defined for the library, the TAP Hall, the multipurpose hall and the new school.

The Mwabwindo School serves primary students in southern Zambia, located in a rural area where travel distance to school is one of the biggest impediments to quality education. This is the second school in the region developed by the 14+ Foundation, a non-profit committed to increasing education accessibility for rural African communities. 

Project Overview
“Shake, shake, to Grandma’s Bridge …”. The nursery rhymes of the dream sounded in my ears, and then it returned to the small village with crisscrossed rivers. The green trees on the shore were full filled with sweet fruits, and the children on the awning boat could pick them up. Now, in this jungle of steel and cement, we are more concerned about whether the next generation will get excellent education resources, and if they can stand out in the fierce competition with their peers. Nevertheless, we completely ignore their contact with nature, which leads to this generation Children have “natural deficiencies.”

Since 1928 Saint Stephen of Hungary School has been an anchor institution In New York, serving Pre-K through 8^thgrade students and their families. To advance flexible and modern-day learning and community experiences, the school facility and its shared assembly space with the affiliated church were renovated. An underutilized roof terrace space was transformed into an environmental science lab that has both indoor and outdoor learning spaces, connected by a glass garage door.

Friends Seminary is located in Stuyvesant Square Historic District in New York. The campus includes a historic meeting house, a 1963 classroom building, Hunter Hall, and three townhouses constructed in 1852. We maintained the historic townhouse facades, demolished remaining wood and brick structure, excavated new basements, built new floors to align with the floors of the adjoining classroom building, and constructed two new floors of classroom space above the townhouses and classroom building. A narrow skylit gallery separates the new building from the historic facades, and exposed steel bracing bridges between old and new. The project includes a new accessible entrance and lobby, a Great Room opening directly onto the central court, the Archive Room, a Music suite, Dance and Yoga suite, an Upper School Commons opening onto a rooftop terrace and community space, additional classrooms and offices, study and locker spaces, a rooftop greenhouse and mesh enclosed play structure, important connections to nature and landscape in a dense urban environment.

The former MTS (secondary technical school) building from 1973 designed by architect B.J. Ingwersen has been transformed by atelier PRO into the new premises of Lumion Amsterdam, a school for MAVO /senior general (HAVO) and pre-university (VWO). A combination of demolition, renovation and new construction has given this municipal monument a second life as the accommodation for the first Kunskapsskolan in the Netherlands.

A city of miracles, Shenzhen in the past four decades has undergone an urbanization process that generally takes a city over a century to realize. Yet the rapid growth in economy and wealth do not necessarily conjure up ready-to-use education facilities and other urban infrastructures which entail both time and sustained financial support. With a younger demographic structure, Shenzhen outpaces the other three first-tire cities in China, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, in terms of average annual growth of the newborn population. Moreover, as a city of migrants, it has embraced a large number of children of school age and saw a wider gap between the demand and supply of primary and secondary school positions. The shortboard effect with the basic education, cultural life and other public services will adversely impact the city’s core competitiveness and sustainability.

Imbibing the organic character of Indian villages & old cities, the Rajasthan School is a low rise 3 level school with open, enclosed and semi enclosed spaces of varying volumes. Taking cognizance of the desert climate of its location with temperatures in excess of 35°C for most of the year, each of the classrooms are north oriented to derive indirect sunlight . The auditorium , primary school and administration space occupy the southern side of the plot opening into a large sheltered open area towards the north beyond which the secondary school classrooms, library & cafeteria are located.