Preface:
There is a growing interest throughout the education community in the innovative reorganisation of schools by encouraging education leaders to move even further towards collaborative learning. As a result this contemporary mode of learning requires a new spatial response that fosters and reflects an environment of collaboration and integration, amongst it’s students, staff and wider community. 

The Integrated Learning Typology:
The (p)Lay-er Cake School was proposed following DS-13's field trip to Shenzhen, China. It looks into the Chinese education system with the aim to develop a new spatial typology, which supports integrated learning environments and focuses on the curation of play and study, as activities that can extend to the wider community.

An Envelope of Individuality:
With the aim to cater to students from the ages of 3-18 (i.e. an all-ages school) the design provides spaces of individuality for each school phase, while ensuring it's wholesomeness as an integrated learning environment.

Stacking is the technique tested as a means of creating a series of vertical layers respective of each school phase (i.e. pre-school layer; primary school layer; middle school layer; high school layer), as a means of accommodating students of the densely populated city of Shenzhen, while maximising upon land value with a reduced footprint.

The envelope is wrapped around the program of each school phase, allowing the different age groups to hold their individual identities – through their facade, while representing the school’s shared identity  and content– through the buildings structure.

The Urban Pixel:
It achieves it's communal and civic presence, by being situated in the centre of a public park, arguably providing security for students with clear lines of visibility to it's surrounding context, in addition to inviting visitors into the school buildings public programmes.

These public programmes are the very zenith of the school's communal function and are celebrated in the core of the building, in what is known as 'The Vortex'. Here a combination of public and shared activities are organised to provide the integrated learning environment. 

Siting the school in the centre of the park has the primary aim to attract individuals passing by, however the activities within the park also reflect the identities of play to found at each school layer. For instance the playground found to the north-west of the site, is a reflection of the kindergarten and primary school's respective play areas; the undulating roof for the bus depot, works as a surface for skating, as reflected in the skate ramp which forms part of the envelope for the middle school.

As a result the vocabulary of the design allows the proposal to not necessarily reinvent the Chinese education system, but rather provide the spatial options and variations that create new educational encounters, amongst the varying school phases, along with creating a new social relationship with the institution and it’s  external community, to truly allow the construct to be a catalyst for urban activity and urban attention.