Italian studio C+S Architects has accomplished a nursery close to Bergamo that includes a pink concrete retaining wall engraved with representations of the animals from a celebrated Fifties puzzle by designer Enzo Mari.
The playful wall welcomes youngsters to the nursery in Alzano Lombardo, which was designed by C+S Architects and native studio Capitanio Architetti to reference each its setting and the historical past of Italian design.
The constructing is located inside a historic park elaborate and includes a huge pavilion-like construction clad in white glass mosaic tiles and punctuated by bronze-coloured frames that encompass the home windows.
The positioning for the nursery was beforehand the park’s vegetable backyard and is bordered on two sides by excessive partitions constituted of stone and concrete that separate it from an adjoining avenue and a neighbouring home.
The pigmented concrete wall references the stone retaining partitions, that are a typical characteristic all through the Val Seriana area, and incorporates aggregates chosen to harmonise with the encircling panorama.
A sequence of ramps descends from the road in direction of the nursery’s entrance. The wall reverse the principle door is embellished with embossed interpretations of the puzzle items created by Mari in 1957 as a toy and studying instrument.
C+S Architects co-founder Maria Alessandra Segantini defined that her recollections of enjoying with the puzzle as a baby knowledgeable the choice to engrave these shapes into the concrete floor.
“The heat of that second was stored someplace in my reminiscence to resurface after I began serious about the Alzano college,” she mentioned of the mission, which the studio has known as Noah’s Ark.
“I needed each youngster to really feel that heat in my college – that concept of being collectively, that pleasure of enjoying whereas studying.”
A number of of the creatures carved into the wall are given added capabilities, with the hippopotamus housing the pram and bike storage, whereas the pig and bull incorporate air flow for the heating plant.
When considered from avenue stage, the nursery constructing is usually obscured by the monolithic partitions. The one half that’s observable is a sequence of saw-toothed roof profiles that reference the area’s industrial heritage.
Alzano Lombardo is understood for the manufacturing of a white concrete that knowledgeable the selection of white mosaic for the nursery’s cladding.
Internally, the single-storey constructing is usually rendered in white to boost the brightness of areas that obtain pure lithe from the huge facade openings and clerestory home windows beneath the roof pitches.
A huge atrium capabilities as a multi-use communal house and because the essential circulation, offering entry to school rooms on one aspect of the constructing and facilities together with the gymnasium, first help room, employees rooms and kitchen on the opposite.
A pair of inside courtyards that includes supple flooring embellished with Mari’s animals flank the central corridor. These glass-walled areas provide a line of sight throughout the constructing and can be utilized as sheltered, open-air play areas.
The interior structure was designed with flexibility in thoughts, making certain that each house can carry out a number of makes use of. This allows the constructing to perform as each a nursery and a facility for group employ throughout evenings and weekends.
“We’ve got designed a ‘house of potential’, the place each house will be reworked by the creativity of the academics or the group that revolves round it,” advised Segantini’s co-founder Carlo Cappai.
“All distribution areas are beneficiant and will be reworked into areas for particular actions, even throughout after-school hours,” he added. “On this means, the college turns into an epicentre for the group and strengthens its identification.”
Lecture rooms organized alongside one aspect of the circulation space characteristic glazed doorways and huge home windows that create a visible connection between the corridor and the actions going down inside.
Inside every classroom, the white linoleum flooring is engraved with one of many animals in a novel color that’s matched by the tiles used for that part’s corresponding toilet.
The animals recur within the type of plywood cutouts on the classroom partitions. The alternative partitions are lined with built-in storage that extends the total size of the house.
Every classroom has direct entry to an exterior portico that includes steel pillars that help a sequence of angled blinds designed to increase in direction of the facade with out touching it.
On the reverse finish of the doorway is a huge canteen that opens onto a backyard and play space incorporating two huge circles of supple carpeting into which the animal silhouettes are as soon as once more engraved.
Noah’s Ark is the most recent college mission accomplished by Segantini and Cappai’s studio, which has been engaged on instructional buildings for greater than 30 years.
The agency, which has places of work in Italy and the UK, goals to develop culturally delicate options that discover groundbreaking technical and materials potentialities. Earlier examples embrace a vibrant main college with contrasting window particulars and a courthouse that includes a mysterious gloomy gable.
