Nursery School in Hamburg
- Emilia Margaretha
The small nursery school on Hamburg’s northeast side occupies an unusually large site. The children who attend the facility have a surface area of 7000 m² available to them in which they can play amid mature trees. The relationship to nature is an important part of the school’s pedagogic concept. The architects developed a design that allowed them to integrate the volume in the small-scale fabric of a neighbourhood consisting primarily of single-family homes: they apportioned the building massing in smaller subunits. Each of the classrooms has an adjoining quiet room and lavatory. The kitchen and the auxiliary spaces are grouped around a shared space for active play. At the very centre of the nursery school is a compact atrium that brings daylight into the interiors. The corridor surrounding the space for active play – reminiscent of a cloister – may also be used by the children for varying activities. It is spatially and acoustically uncoupled by means of a floor-to-ceiling, porous wall that is infilled with wood or glass. Different programmatic functions – such as the children’s cubbyholes, seating nooks for both children and adults, shelving and storage space – are integrated in these walls. Because the latter are transparent, staff members can keep an eye on the goings-on in the house. On top of that, the walls forge a visual link to the vegetation.
