Kindergarten and Primary School in Zaldibar

Zaldibar, Vizcaya. Spain | 2012

Zaldibar City Council

Designing educational spaces for children means understanding little worlds based on flexible rooms where furniture and diverse objects create imaginative situations. Large rooms or typical schemes with fixed classrooms and hallways must be avoided to fulfill our purpose. Therefore, a system of interior and exterior spaces and playgrounds appropriate for creativeness and learning is proposed.

The construction is required to be done in two phases, so the proposal divides the program in two independent volumes separated by a playground. Both buildings are designed with the same constructive module –five meters wide– the same functional scheme for classrooms and polyvalent spaces. Basic geometry is used as formal strategy.

The roof of most spaces –classrooms and polyvalent spaces- is solved with a prefabricated solution. An oblique cone, proposed to illuminate inner spaces, generates a singular deck with playful appearance and gives the space below a kindly form.