From kindergartens to universities, the system of receiving education has changed drastically including the way we perceive the educational building. A tradition that started with simply erecting four walls years ago now has turned into including functionality not only on the interiors but also on the exteriors. The architecture of these buildings depends on the users who are between the ages of 3 to 22 years.
Today, all these buildings are constructed with norms and requirements that help students develop in all areas whether physically or mentally not only in the classrooms but on the playgrounds, theatre, and many more spaces.
Here is our list of the 15 Educational Buildings that can change the way we view and perceive them today arranged in alphabetical order. The following list does not rank any building or architectural firm.
1. C.O Kindergarten and Nursery | Educational Buildings
Year: 2014
Location: Hiroshima, Japan
Architects: HIBINOSEKKEI, Youji no Shiro
Website: https://architizer.com/firms/hibinosekkeiyouji-no-shiro/
This educational building is located in a rural area almost 60km away from the city, Hiroshima. To avoid the traditional practices of the school, the design of the structure is based on the interaction between children and space. The place is also having an in-house café separate from the nursery building which acts as a place of exchange for the parents and children, parents to each other, and to the teachers while enjoying refreshments. The café also serves as a dining room for the children during the lunch break. Windows of the prefectural roadside with a pick-up rotary can also be opened which allows passersby to look at the activity’s children perform in the schoolyard and the café.
2. Da Hop Kindergarten and Primary School | Educational Building
Year: 2019
Location: Thành Phố Hòa Bình, Vietnam
Architects: 1+1>2 International Architecture JSC
The school is designed on the lines of friendliness, harmony with culture, nature, and people. The school is set between beautiful mountains which can be seen from the classrooms and the environment around is extremely lively with diverse spaces that allow children to explore and experience surprises making the school an interesting place. The design of this educational building concentrates on the movement with the blocks interlocking with the rhythm, connected by a covered bridge corridor, appropriate and safe for children’s movement. The school accommodates practice rooms, skill rooms, theaters, 4-season swimming pools, indoor and outdoor stadiums, aquatic gardens, playgrounds, etc., which contribute to children’s mental and physical advancements. The roof of the school has eco-roof insulation layers, rainwater gutters that help in watering plants in the schoolyard. Though the north-south direction of the school optimizes ventilation and natural lighting, the south side uses a sun-blocking layer on the main face and the west and northwest cover the sun and wind through balcony openings. The use of un-burnt bricks minimizes heat transfer, as well as increases, sound insulation, and noise reduction.
3. DH Triangle School
Year: 2015
Location: Namyangj-Si, South Korea
Architects: NAMELESS Architecture
The Triangle School builds a bond between people, place, and education. The structure explores new possibilities of educational architecture through the logical interpretation of such complexity and simplicity. The three sides of the building face different environments, a playground on the north, hills on the east, and an existing structure on the west which leads to different elevations opened, closed, and compromised. The open side of the north face is constructed with vertical louvers which provide both privacy and illumination. A concrete wall with a triangle-shaped window minimizes mutual interference, implying the geometry of internal space on the east side with the existing building.
4. El Recreo Kindergarten
Year: 2019
Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Architects: DARP
Website: www.darp.com.co
This educational building is created on the basis of circulation that traverses to cross the blocks that make up both the kindergarten and the social welfare center. The circulation is achieved by the succession of courtyards, terraces, and necessary spaces for play. These spaces are connected with the help of double-height, interior balconies, ramps which maximize the exchange and control point between the user and members of the establishment. The kindergarten and social welfare services are provided in the first two structures and the public activities are located in the third structure.
5. Groupe Scolaire Pasteur | Educational Buildings
Year: 2019
Location: Mions, France
Architects: R2K Architectes
Website: www.rkarchitdd.cluster027.hosting.ovh.net/
Located near Paris, the educational building consists of three preschools and two elementary schools. This project was chosen by ‘conception- commission method’ where the team was given one month to design all plans and the construction on a fixed budget along with social housing apartments. The main constraint was to provide design by incorporating wooden designs. The school is one of the biggest in France with a student capacity of 1000. So the architects wanted to give each building its own image and an overall big frame. The goal was to create seamless inner and outer spaces.
6. Hakusui Nursery School
Year: 2014
Location: Chiba, Japan
Architects: Yamazaki Kentaro Design Workshop
Website: www.ykdw.org
The project was introduced to the firm by the Seiyu- Kai, a local facility that specializes in elderly care and the planning started with the concept of a nursery school is a large house’. The educational building rests on a gentle slope in the southern area. The schoolroom was designed to resemble a large set of staircases. The exceptional feature is the ‘Large House’ where people of different ages share the same room so as to increase interaction. The architects have also minimized the number of blind spots in order to keep safety measures in control.
7. HeFei No.10 Secondary School
Year: 2015
Location: Hefei, China
Architects: Horizon Architectural Design Co. Ltd
With 3 years under construction, the school provides exclusive functional areas such as students and teachers area, library, and art buildings, etc. connected to each other by its own functional characteristics. This ideology comes from the traditional Chinese academic institutions; it also implied our understanding of the traditional Chinese culture about “school”. The team used succinct lines to express the complex space relations which come in with various combinations of the inner courtyard, super terranean spaces, corridors, and footsteps. As the YueLu Academic Institution, the overall layout is symmetrical, but as this campus is limited to the outline of the land, the team decided to use a relatively unconstrained layout scheme followed by logical arrangement.
8. International School of Debrecen | Educational Building
Year: 2019
Location: Debrecen, Hungary
Architects: BORD Architectural Studio
Website: www.bordstudio.hu
The project is based on the form of a circle. The shape symbolizes protection, union, and community while blending softly into the neighboring forest area of the Natura 2000. The main focus of the design concept is to compliment the shape of the building with the environment. The wood is used as an illustration of nature and science, this way the forest becomes a part of the designed structure. The gates that open in the direction of the forest, allows students to interact and experience nature. The building is divided into three different size groups and communities.
9. Jojutla School
Year: 2019
Location: Mexico
Architects: Taller de Arquitectura X / Alberto Kalach
Website: www.kalach.com
The project was brought to reality after the 2017 earthquakes in Mexico. The lead architect Alberto Kalach, researched and documented a few schools that were affected and would be an ideal prototype that would resist future events. The solution was to use a structure of arches in two directions which are rigid and solid by nature and are accompanied by bare slabs. This also resulted in selecting concrete as the main material depending on its characteristics of durability and practicality that allowed creating spaces that shaped the transits of users allowing fluid circulation and versatile spaces. The concrete is complemented with the wooden doors, pergolas, and lattices, combined with the height of the ceilings and the vertical circulations starting from helical shapes, which will form a system of cross ventilation that is generous with the user.
10. Maidenhill Primary School & Nursery | Educational Buildings
Year: 2019
Location: Newton Mearns, United Kingdom
Architects: BDP
Website: www.bdp.com
The project is a part of the new Maidenhill development, a completely new neighborhood comprising more than 800 homes at Newton Mearns, southwest of Glasgow. A “green spine” runs through the development, connecting the new dwellings to a central landscaped pathway that feeds into the school. The design focuses on providing spaces for children that encourage their curiosity and create learning landscapes that are incorporated with play elements and natural forms. The central heart space is surrounded by learning scenarios that are flexible such as the wall pockets and birdhouse used for individual or group learning. The school is not only a perfect place for students to learn, but the school also set a good example for others as it contains The School Achieved Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating A (most efficient), the roof also houses 400sqm solar panels, low energy emittance lights and low water use fittings are also applied throughout the school. The landscape design embraces a sustainable approach to play.
11. North Perlic School | Educational Buildings
Year: 2018
Location: Lons, France
Architects: Camborde Architectes
Website: www.camborde-architectes.com
The project is a part of a contextual approach where the setting is in line with the Cami Salie Path, which clears large playgrounds creating protective cocoons in the heart of the school. The educational building consists of two south-facing levels which allow natural light and a panoramic view of the Pyrenees. It is divided into three separate buildings consisting of school, catering, and extracurricular which are physically connected by a faceted copper roof that covers all the amenities. The edged shape of the roof combined with alternating sequences of wood and concrete frame walls create lively and dynamic designs.
12. Råå Day Care Center
Year: 2013
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden
Architects: Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter
Website: www.dortemandrup.dk
The kindergarten is located on a scenic beach between the old Råå School and the sea. The structure is constructed on the surrounding landscape which consists of slightly sloping dunes surrounded by disinvite typology of small fishermen houses. The building consists of four groups of children each with respective group rooms. The rooms identify themselves in the façade as a gable of a fisherman house which also has common space in the between. The large windows in the façade are ideal for providing daylight conditions all year and also create close contact with the surrounding landscape and sea.
13. Sangam Elementary School | Educational Building
Year: 2018
Location: Bhilwara, India
Architects: SferaBlu Architects
Website: www.namanshaharchitects.com
The project is located in the urban fabric of Rajasthan covering an area of 2612 sq. mt. The design focuses on establishing a bond between students and the environment. The educational building was inspired by triangular cheese silver with tiny holes on its sides as seen in cartoons similarly the external surface also has multiple punctures. To maintain visual connectivity with nature and the surrounding tiny windows are provided on the exterior façade. Each floor is staggered which creates small planters and generates an organic form of the structure. Near the main entrance is an open amphitheater which is used for activities such as morning prayers, dramas, and performances. This made the team repurpose the roof of the entire building into a sloping garden interconnecting each floor. The flat area of the roof is used as a cycling track. The building is a three-storied structure, with a highly perforated built form. It also consists of two courtyards that help reduce heat gain and provide efficient air circulation in the entire building.
14. Andrew’s Scots School
Year: 2019
Location: Victoria, Argentina
Architects: Rosan Bosch Studio
Website: www.rosanbosch.com
The studio creates a holistic learning environment that activates the school’s Scottish Heritage and sets the framework for the student’s growth and development. The designof this educational building creates a learning journey through the flat beaches of the lowlands to the rocky highlands. For the kindergarten division, the students are grouped around the open beach-inspired areas of the lowlands which offer students to have a flexible and comfortable learning space with padded surfaces which are ideal for romping and movement. To give each space its own identity all the beaches have a distinctive coral sculpture. Integrated lightboxes in the wooden podiums give students a chance to train fine motor control by tracing and drawing patterns on their own. As the age group increases the students reach the highlands where their territory gradually expands offering more selection for the ways of learning. Inspired by the sculptural rocks along the Scottish Coast, the hexagonal basalt columns present an intriguing learning setting. The highlands also consist of open and shared learning environments which have both bookable and unbookable spaces. The flexibility of spaces gives teachers the opportunity to plan according to the needs of the students.
15. The Rajasthan School | Educational Buildings
Year: 2019
Location: Ras, India
Architects: Sanjay Puri Architects
Website: www.sanjaypuriarchitects.com
The Rajasthan School is a low rise 3 level school with open, enclosed, and semi-enclosed spaces of varying volumes absorbing the organic character of Indian villages and old cities. The educational building is located in an area where the temperature exceeds 35 degrees Celsius around the year. The auditorium, primary school, and administration spaces occupy the southern side of the plot which opens into a sheltered open area towards the secondary school classrooms, library & cafeteria are located in the north. The semi-sheltered courtyard has multiple angular pathways connecting the school and the landscaped spaces. The shadow pattern of the focal area changes depending on the sun’s direction throughout the day due to its traversed by a series of linear trapezoidal frames and sun- breakers. The entire circulation is through open naturally ventilated corridors traversing and surrounding the focal semi-sheltered landscape court in the center. Angled vertical walls act as sun breakers to reduce the heat gain from the east, west, and south sides generate cooler internal spaces. The school gets electrical power requirements generated by the residual energy of a cement plant nearby and the water is completely recycled and reused. The organic layout forms a different character to each part of the school giving each space different views & different perceptions.
