Current trends in education, seek to activate a wider range of modes of learning, well beyond “study”, in order to advance a student to a deeper understanding of a subject. This requires a much more dynamic approach with greater emphasis placed on interaction and communication, which in spatial terms requires a much more loosely defined context to allow for and to encourage a more natural, active, and spontaneous engagement between students and teachers, students and their educational materials, and among the students themselves.
Our design manifests this by deconstructing these modes of learning and their related activities and reconstructing them into a more dynamic integrated environment. Instead of structured functional spaces, the result is more of a “heat map” of uses within a permeable and transformational space. This space is architecturally celebrated as the “center stage” of the school and will, it is our belief, better prepare the next generations of Chinese students for the future.
This approach to the dynamic integration of functional spaces is very innovative, particularly in an educational setting in China. It is in opposition to the highly structured, single result, approach to education currently practiced there. Instead, this integration of modes stimulates the cross-fertilization of knowledge and ideas, generating the multi-various results needed in an increasingly competitive global economy.
In architectural terms, this integration has taken the form of a large four-story “infrastructure” to provide a platform for a variety of adaptable functions to be “plugged” into. This strategy allows for great flexibility in the accommodation of new functions and in the rearrangement of current functions creating new relationships. By thus exploding the constraints of a traditional Chinese school, greater intellectual and creative possibilities are opened up for students.
Our scheme also introduced some minor but significant urban innovations. Firstly, it needs to be understood that current urban practice in China is to generally segregate every block, and schools in particular are usually set off from the rest of the city. The “infrastructure” element of our scheme is intended to provide a public “face” to the school, creating an important urban interface with the city. It also provides a direct link to the riverside park, inviting students to go beyond the school to engage with the larger landscape of the city. These are small but important steps toward the greater integration of Chinese cities.
Client: Bureau Public Works of Shenzhen Municipality
Location: Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Site Area: 65,000 m2
Building Area: 110,000 m2
Design Date: 2020
