The 3 Courtyards Kindergarten
Where a learning space doesn't have to be just a classroom
Year 4 | Academic Project
Type: Education Architecture
Location: Tonle Bassac, Phnom Penh Cambodia
Professor: Dr. Stefan Tkac
Individual Work
Design Narrative
Before began working on this kindergarten project, the architect asked three questions: ”How do children learn?” “How can we get children to enjoy learning?” and “What do children long for the most?” The answers to these questions are quite simple. Children do not know what they want or what they need to do, and they often do not know how to do it. But one thing that we know is that Children love to play. As a result, architects need to guide children’s learning through architecture and design.
In this kindergarten project, we focus on the essence of how the children learn, through the 5 senses, sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Like every child ever, children love to play, With those in mind, the project intention is to create a space where the children can run freely, design for specific programs and functions, while at the same time they get to play, they get to explore and hopefully they get to learn something.
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The goal of the project was to create a space where children could run freely, play, explore, and learn. Incorporating biophilic elements, such as vegetation, natural light, and natural materials, makes educational spaces more stimulating and conducive to learning. Contact with nature inside and around learning spaces provides a range of benefits, including increased creativity, concentration, productivity, and air quality. This space will provide children with a stimulating and enjoyable environment in which they can reach their full potential.
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The design focuses on establishing a range of landscapes, greeneries, and as well as pockets of indoor courtyard to provide children with a never-ending space to play, which promotes the idea of “Never Ending Learning Space” where the children don’t just study in the classroom and from books. Emphasis is placed on outdoors green spaces. Recreational spaces with lots of vegetation bring nature closer to students’ daily life by fusing surrounding trees and an infinite sky, creating a surreal setting that inspires children to think, reflect, and seek infinite possibilities. The goal is to give the kids senses or a feeling of their surroundings, including sounds like cars driving and honking, people commuting, and society living around them. By creating multiple edges, allow the children to see different corners of life, to see different scenarios which essentially let them observe and learn at the same time.
The site, located along the Norodom Blvd, its layout is long and narrow, which fortunately, the longer part of the site is facing north and south which means the site will benefit from the daylighting and wont receive intensity of the sun all day and as well as provide an opportunity for passive design.
The spatial organization was designed in a way that divide space for specific functions and activities, yet at the same time provide a secure and safe space that give children freedom to run and play while at the same time also give the teacher the sight of the children to look after them.
Massing model
Program massing
Sketch
When children are put into a big room, they often feel small and scare. As a result, one of the design goals is to lower the ceiling at spaces that children use most such classroom up to 3 meters, to make the children feel tall and feel important.
As a child, I was so scared about going to school, going to a place full of strangers. I would always asked my mom to stay with me when I to school to study and I remember I would always cry when my mom left me at school. I feel it is very essential to create and design the kindergarten in a way that the children can relate to, something that resemble their home, a place that they can feel safe. As a result, the design incorporate with white painted concrete compliment by light timber flooring to create a sense of being at home for the children to keep them at ease.
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