École Maternelle ZAC Moskowa

Mark Dudek

Description

One of the major problems with any educational facility is security and the risk of vandalism when the centre is closed at night and during the weekends. This is of particular concern in high crime areas. Here the architects have made something of a virtue of this practical consideration designing a building which is predominantly closed and secure on its vulnerable ground floor with small windows and shutters, but open on its first floor with large windows and a roof garden. The architects describe this organising principle in child centric terms as a ‘fortress-like’ plinth; the more open glazed upper level connects visually to the city beyond. This hierarchy is given further expression through the use of materials; there is solid grey granite cladding on the ground floor, with predominantly glazed or white rendered panels to the first floor structure, a lighter finish which is more expressive of the openness of the children themselves.

This material clarity is carried through into the building’s functional layout with all children’s activity spaces on the open upper level, and areas for more discreet activities such as sleeping on the closed ground floor. Staircases, lifts and circulation corridors are clearly and simply set out to provide a building which is not only legible in elevation, through the way it looks from the outside, but also in terms of its plan layout. The architects strongly believe that it is important for children to be able to understand their environment. Children learn from everything particularly during the early years, but they must be capable of understanding the place within which they live on the most basic levels. It follows therefore that the coherence and legibility of the internal organisation, reflected on the external façades, communicates crucial lessons which will contribute to their educational development and sense of well-being. This architecture of clarity is well illustrated in the axonometric study where the three primary forms are described. There is the base with its small expressive windows and security shutters, the first floor main block with its large curtain glazing and a third block, floating enigmatically away from the other two elements, containing the administration offices. The whole assemblage wraps around an inner space, which acts as a semi-public courtyard for social events, and the children’s secure playground at all other times. It contains a small cultivation garden where children can plant vegetables and see them grow.

The organising principle can be interpreted firstly as the children’s world contained within the first floor block, where they may relate themselves and their emerging personalities to the city beyond the confines of the daycare institution, secondly as the adult world of control and a certain amount of discipline contained within the slightly austere, detached block floating away to the north and thirdly as the base structure, solid and secure and perhaps expressive of the community itself. It all goes to make a building which is immensely practical in terms of the paradoxical needs children have: security and protection from a sometimes hostile public realm on the one hand, and an environment which is open to exploration and imaginative interpretation on the other.