protruding, colored 'sheds' define architektura's kindergarten design

Vėtrník kindergarten by architektura: a free-form complex

As part of a new development plan for the Říčany-Větrník area in the Czech Republic, local practice Architektura Studio has built an unusually whimsical kindergarten focused on sports and gym activities. ‘We designed three objects and connected them – a kindergarten, a gym, and a garden. We’re planning on building the gym but the kindergarten and part of the garden are already completed,’ says the studio.

Taking inspiration from ‘the child as a phenomenon’, Architektura devised a free-form complex with protruding, colorful blocks where classrooms are held. These structures jut out of a central white cube where an entrance atrium welcomes visitors to enjoy a spiderweb-like rope installation suspended from tree trunks.

all images © Filip Šlapal

celebrating child-like wonder, curiosity, and spontaneity

‘Many meetings took place with teachers, representatives of sports clubs, and the management of the Town of Říčany before the proposal was settled. The children themselves were essential – their games, movement, vision, and scale. Children’s spontaneity, disorganization, unpredictability, purity, curiosity, optimism, and unburdened by the bitterness of life,’ elaborates the team.

Architeektura assigned all functional programs to the central white structure, which includes facilities, offices, and entrances. Individual classrooms, meanwhile, emerge as colorful house-shaped volumes, breaking out of the rectangular mold and reaching for the garden. Inside these classrooms, spread over two floors, spaces transform into play areas for hiding, learning, and exploring. Shaped like Indian tee-pees, they allow ample daylight pour in from triangular windows, enlivening visible wooden structures that recall tree branches.

In the entrance atrium, a central, spiderweb-like hammock installation serves as a play area accessible from all classrooms. ‘We hope it will be used and the children will swing and fly. The net is carried by tree trunks that have been thanked for their service. The atrium also serves as a community space for singing, acting, exhibitions, and theater,’ notes Architektura.

The main entrance is accessed from the street, evoking the door to a mysterious temple or spaceship. The street-facing façade is partially designed as vertical greenery, which will hopefully thicken and spread to one day absorb the entire front. Meanwhile, the technical infrastructure is left partially visible for children to witness how and where water, electricity, and air flow.

house-shaped blocks host the children’s classrooms

‘We wanted to build an object for children that is not an institution, it is playful and will enable the development of creativity and all the beautiful specificities of the child’s soul. An object that will create subconscious images for children that may one day arise in adulthood to develop something…’ concludes the studio.