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Kéré Architecture breaks ground on new timber childcare center at the Technical University of Munich

2024-04-24T15:45:00-04:00

Kéré Architecture has broken ground on a new all-wood childcare facility at the Technical University Munich (TUM). The design of the Ingeborg Pohl Kinderoase an der TUM is 700 square meters (7,500 square feet) in total and will hold space for 60 children in service to faculty members and their families.

Image copyright Kéré Architecture

The building, made possible through a donation from philanthropist Ingeborg Pohl, is defined by its playful interior, which incorporates a variety of scales and unique circulatory features, such as slides that connect each of its five floors.

Image copyright Kéré Architecture

Administrative suites are placed at the ground level, with three floors dedicated to children and divided by age group. A green roof play area called the Himmelswiese (German for “field of the heavens”) completes the program above. The firm has emphasized its use of timber throughout is meant to “take the sustainability of the building to the extreme.”

Image copyright Kéré Archi...

A flexible Japanese nursery school that functions like a village

2023-06-07T15:12:00-04:00

Takeru Shoji Architects has designed a nursery school in Niigata, Japan, that forms a seamless connection between its rooms, the building, and the surrounding area. Called The Center for Early Childhood Education and Care, the school is dedicated to the principles of engaging “naturally with nature.”

Image © Koji Fujii (toreal)

The single-story wooden building was designed to establish a mutual relationship between it and the surrounding village, in which the village is involved in the children’s learning and play, and the nursery functions to revitalize the village.

A series of workshops, including childcare researchers and workers, parents, and local residents, was conducted to discuss the potential of hosting a school that would serve an area with an aging population and declining birthrate. The participants decided on a vision to create the nursery school to work like a village and for the village to function like a nursery ...

Nursery in Sarreguemines, France

2011-10-14T16:06:02-04:00

French architects Paul Le Quernec and Michel Grasso have shared with us photos of their recently completed collaboration, a nursery in Sarreguemines, France. The design is based on the concept of a body cell with its nucleus as the core and surrounding elements that are being confined by the cell membrane.