Gartenkinder

About

The school, with its associated open spaces and the nearby church, is both a spatial and a content-based center of the village of Zihlschlacht. The topographical edge in the south, further reinforced by the sports field, forms the boundary between the school and the village. At this intersection is the new kindergarten building. The main idea of the project is to highlight the relationship between the school and the village.
The round form of the new building is designed so to be in contrast to its neighboring housing buildings in order to differ private from public. The covered main entrance of the building is positioned at the same topographical level like the school. Via a side entrance, the lower floors are directly connected to the topographical level of the lower village. A continuous, ring-shaped spatial continuum connects the kindergarten spaces with the school area at different heights on the level of the village and the school via two spins from the bottom up. The individual interior spaces are zoned by terracing the interior and are visually connected to each other.  A contiguous space is created, which can be divided if required. At the same time, every room has a strong outdoor space connection. Thanks to the central core with an elevator, all rooms can be used independently of each other and barrier-free. The spatial continuum and the regular system across all floors allows flexible use of the rooms.  The circular shape allows the architectural program to be placed in a specific relationship with the surrounding outdoor spaces. The outside space is understood as an extension of the actual kindergarten space and promotes learning from nature. For this purpose, the supporting structural elements are concentrated in the façade and in the core.

Credits

Authors

Bach-Mühle-Fuchs + Ljubica Arsić

Type

Invited competition

Team

Dr Mario Rinke, structural engineer

Johannes Heine, landscape  architect

Visualization

Ljubica Arsić

Location

Zihlschlacht, Switzerland

Year

2016