Nursery School and Kindergarten

Murcia, Spain

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Nursery School and Kindergarten

Murcia, Spain

Firm

COR & Asociados

Type

Educational › Elementary School

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2013

The evolution and exponential growth that Los Alcazares has suffered in recent years has brought the need for increased public provision of education, particularly for young children. Such centers play an extremely important social function, as they are compatible with the “modern family model,” fully developing family life and activities of the workplace.

The rapid growth and development of society sometimes results in an irregular urban organization, which in this context has shaped an allocated piece of community facilities from the partial compensation plan 'Lorenzo,’ located between three roads; a triangular plan which has an area of 750,000 square feet. The site is surrounded by a disjointed sequence of wooded green space. The extent of the plot led to the formulation of educational use combined with the playful; projecting, as a result, the nursery school in a gallery or public spaces with trees. This situation creates a 'space synergy’ that doubly benefits the entire population with the offer of a new public center surrounded by green areas, which does not exhaust the entire floor, allowing the rest of the parcel to be articulated with adjacent green areas.

The building occupies an area of 8,600 square feet. The program includes six classrooms, a nest, multipurpose room, bedroom, dining room, and offices necessary for the proper development of the activities which will be assigned.

Inside, the center is organized into two wings connected by a main entrance that articulates the set of interior spaces with an outdoor patio, so the building is closed to the street, and opens inside the courtyard, which protects the children at play and creates a unique inner landscape.
Of these two wings, the first and largest of them is where most of the organized teaching spaces are located as well as the offices and dressing rooms; in the second, there are the catering kitchen and facilities.

Thanks to the geographical situation and weather in Los Alcazares, a town on the edge of the Mar Menor, the classrooms were placed into the yard, filtering noise pollution, and, above all, opening up the space to the outdoors, offering an interesting amalgam of the educational environment, and developing daily outdoor activities.

The reflection and development outlined in this center of learning is based on the benefits of education outside the classroom as learning context, and group activities. This arises from research on two complementary but disciplinary opposite poles: the psychology and teaching architecture of the central European 30s. First, the thesis of Enriqueta Molina that says we can learn best through direct experience with natural materials and life situations outside of school. On the other hand, “The Open Air School in Amsterdam” by Johannes Duiker assumes Decroly theses and Dalton, which proposed individual attention to children.