The architectural bureau CEBRA (Denmark) is the winner of the international architectural contest for the design of the educational complex "Smart School" with a village for foster children in Irkutsk.
The focus of CEBRA's architectural concept is a flexible combination of students' own initiative, their curiosity, learning process and play with school-organized activities, a sense of security and care. The form of a circle expresses the idea of the unifying community. Its centre becomes a cornerstone and receives special status and emphasis. The conceptual solution of Smart School in Irkutsk is a rich educational environment with a smooth transition between the internal and external spaces. School life will take place not only on specially designated premises, but also in open areas inside and around buildings.
"In developing Smart School in Irkutsk we follow the principles of creating "open", "multifunctional" and "transformable" premises. A lot of research show the influence of architecture on the learning process. In addition, the number of schools in the country is to increase in the upcoming years, and it makes sense to build fundamentally new buildings based on international experience and research in this field," commented Mark Sartan, the head of the Smart School project.
The contest for the development of the Smart School educational complex architectural concept aimed at involving the best architects from all over the world in the process of creating educational environment that meets the modern goals of education and the concept of Smart School. Moreover, goal-oriented work with orphans required the development of a separate settlement for foster families. The tendency towards individualization and the variability of education was to be crystallized in architecture providing pupils and teachers with the maximum choice of both spatial connections and functional load.
The architectural concept of the winner was considered the best by the expert jury in the process of technical evaluation of the participants' proposals based on the following criteria: layout of the planning organization, transport solutions, area balance (territory), total structural volume, area balance (objects), effective area by zones.
The highest rating of the submitted project is based on nine most important aspects (town planning, planning structure, landscape solutions, educational process support, engineering and design solutions, educational institutions interior design, work with orphans, compliance with town planning, construction, hygiene and sanitary norms, cost). It helps to implement all the most important principles of the "Smart School" and take into account the individual characteristics of students.
"In Russia, one of the largest and most unique projects in the architecture of educational complexes is being carried out. Incredible popularity of the contest among the most famous architectural bureaus of the world helped us to get breakthrough ideas and the jury really was spoilt for choice," said Tina Kandelaki, member of the jury and initiator of the Smart School project. - Based upon the sketches of the contestants, the idea that we have been cherishing for several years will be brilliantly put into practice: there is simply no other project like that in Russia".
An important partner and organizer of the competition was Strelka Institute for Design and Architecture, which made it possible to form a pool of international participants who offered fundamentally new concepts that differ from the typical Russian school architecture. We used to believe that the student should adjust to the teaching methodology, now we know that teaching is efficient only when adjusted to the student. "We are inspired by the victory in the international contest for Smart School. It will allow us for the first time in Russia to carry out the concept of Smart School to rethink educational space as a school-park that interacts with the community and the modern world. All children are different and need a learning environment that can take into account different educational situations and needs. Smart School in Irkutsk is a smart choice," says Flemming Svendsen, chief architect of CEBRA.
Фото: CEBRA architecture