St Mary's Kindergarten

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Playtime Studio Project

Designer : Rui Koh
Location                          : North Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Project Year                    : 2013
Project Type                   : Kindergarten Design

A Montessori kindergarten that offers 3 and 4 year old children a varied and active play-based program that helps to develop their physical, social, emotional and intellectual skills.

The proposal fuses the boundaries between the indoor and outdoor play spaces in order to create a "smooth-flow" within the play space. Create journeys with hectic tactile and haptic experiences to enable urban kids expose to the diverse natural world. Tighten the community relationship by proposing a family area and a share playspace as a meeting place for parents, teachers and children.

PROPOSED PLAN

The interior blends into the landscape by letting the exterior elements penetrate into the interior. Same thing goes on the ceiling as well as the addition of skylights brings the blue sky views into the space. The openings within the interior space given the flat and hard timber flooring a more diverse tactile experience in temperature.

2 possible journeys to show different materials and heights affect the way children navigate through the space as they need to undergo extensive changes within both tactile and haptic experiences.

PROPOSED SECTIONS

Different floor height offers the children different view-points and apertures to interact with each other and it is also a strategy to create non-programmed space that encourages them to exercise their imagination.