SCHMID ZIÖRJEN ARCHITEKTENKOLLEKTIV

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.