Kindergarten for Active Children
>
Japanese architectural firm HIBINOSEKKEI + Youji no Shiro, specializing in the design of preschool institutions, rebuilt an old decrepit kindergarten located at Izumi city in the south of Osaka. Izumi is a city which manufactures the textile as the main industry from long time ago. But now as the work transfer to the overseas where has cheap labor, the local industry recession is today’s situation. About this planning, architects set two topics. One is, by daily activities to solve kids’ lake of exercise which caused by inadequate site. Another is, for teaching kids about the local history, put in the element of textile which representative the local industry.
Concretely, for increasing the amount of exercise in the inadequate site, made an environment that kids can run around, and undulating ground. The building is surrounding the middle yard, and ramp which people can climb from first flower to roof is be built. By this plan, kids can bend to a squat and climb to the roof, and then run around get down from stairs to the middle yard. And all these activities make kids’ amount of exercise has been greatly improved.
About the local industry, as one of the mine idea of the design, by using fabric to make the sign and paste carpet on the wall for letting kids play on it, to actualize that the building materials can be touched softly, and also can let kids feel the material texture.
In 2017, KM Kindergarten and Nursery received AAP Architecture Prize in the nomination “design of educational buildings” and the A+Awards in the typology “kindergartens”.
HIBINOSEKKEI + Youji no Shiro
