Xintian international kindergarten
Type: Kindergarten Location: Chaoyang district, Beijing Client: Xintian Real Estate Ltd Team: Bart Reuser, Marijn Schenk, Michel Schreinemachers, John van de Water, Joost Lemmens with Chen Song, Ma Qing, Zai Xin, Floor area / size: 3.000 sqm Status: preliminary design
In a large new residential area, NEXT was commissioned to design a series of public buildings, including a kindergarten, school, club and sales centre.
The first building to be executed is the kindergarten, which must be ready to receive 400 children in 2006. The kindergarten is created through three conceptual architectural steps: a projection of the typical Chinese school on the site, all classrooms face South.
The introduction of the common room transforms the traditional linear design of the school in an unexpected way: by 'pushing' the volume of the common room through the rectangular structure, all the floors are displaced along a curve in a stepped manner, creating an amphitheatre-like space inside the building, and creating a canopy from the overhang of the upper floors on the outside of the building.
The design organizes all classrooms around an internal space, the children's amphitheatre. This theatre is the social heart of the building: here children meet, see, play and are stimulated to learn. In this design, inside and outside are inextricably linked: form and content are one.
