SCHMID ZIÖRJEN ARCHITEKTENKOLLEKTIV
Steinmürli double kindergarten
best architects 21
education buildings
Place
Dietikon, Switzerland
Studio
Photos
Radek Brunecky
Description
The school campus
Steinmürli
in the Swiss town of Dietikon consists of a cluster of orthogonally arranged
school buildings and sports halls. The new kindergarten has been positioned at
right angles to the existing buildings and thus blends into the campus in a
natural way. Its placement reorganises and structures the open spaces and creates
a new sunny and spacious outdoor play area between the existing kindergarten
and the new building. A covered entrance
area leads to the inner corridor and cloakroom of the kindergarten whose floor
plan is mirror symmetric in design. The two main kindergarten rooms are located
on the transverse sides of the building and thus benefit from light entering on
three sides. A sequence of
different ceiling heights are the formative element of the interior. The
differentiation of the interior spaces creates an intriguing sequence of rooms
and makes the hierarchy of uses noticeable when walking through. The different
heights of the rooms are also apparent from the exterior. They structure the
length of the building and give it an appropriate scale. The light-coloured
wooden façade references the colours of the existing buildings on the
site. The vertical and horizontal alignments of the wooden formwork accommodate
the shape of the building and refine the volume in its structure. The kindergarten is designed as a single-storey
wood element construction set on a solid concrete base.