Conceptual Design Competition for a High School in Sichuan

Honorable Mention

SCHOOL
Contemporary school nurtures individuality of students as well as a sense of belonging to specific society. It provides the latest knowledge and skills as well as the awareness of history and tradition. School is an institution that should introduce students with life In urban society and systems of further education. Therefore, school building as one of the main tools for acquiring these goals, should provide adequate space for teaching as well as space for controlled interaction between the students and the city. We believe that public spaces of school should be parts of the city that are coexisting with the local community. The school building is therefore a space for culture, art, science, sport and public interaction that should represent the community and people to which it belongs to.

CONCEPT
The school building is organized strictly hierarchically in order to facilitate successfully such a large number of people and activities. It is divided (roughly speaking) in two large parts: public space, and classrooms

PUBLIC space is orientated towards the city and parts of it could be isolated from the rest of the school In order to be used by a local community even during the school day. We have designed this space as open and fluid, as multifunctional and flexible place for social interaction and representation. It is consisted out of three main zones: 1. conference hall + library, and media room, sports hall, canteen (with collapsible auditorium for special occasions), display of school history and hall for performances public lectures and display of student’s work; 2. main reception – lobby; 3. strip of horizontal and vertical communications that connects different public spaces with classrooms. It also divides the total number of classrooms in three parts allowing us to reduce the height oh the building.

CLASSROOMS are set up in three fingers coming out of the main hall (“terminal”) at right angle. They are lifted of the ground level, to distance from the fuss of the school yard and to provide shade and more open space for sports and play. Proposed organizational structure can be expanded or reduced in accordance to ever changing conditions of urban life.

team: Igor Pantić, Petar Bojović

China, Chengdu, Sichuan. April 2009