A
Poetic and Precise Micro-world
The
new kindergarten in Sesvete is one of more poetic projects in recent Croatian
architecture. That which was obvious in the competition entry sketches from
2004 was confirmed in the realisation of the micro-world oriented inwards,
poetic, but geometrically precise; a meadow softly enveloped by the
ground-floor stretch of kindergarten units.
A
kind of geometrical, mathematical reduction is a property of several
Radionica;s projects. This is sometimes readable from the cross-section,
sometimes from the ground-floor plan, but always im volume proportions.
Projects and realisations of Radionica can often be reduced to elementary
parts: basic geometric figures and their combinations. Complex rather than
complicated relations between simple parts create layered, inner and outer,
closed and open rationalised landscapes.
The
other common charasteristic of Radionica;s projects during an ample period of
time is the marked presence of "natural" elements in them, not in the
sense of "environmental consciousness", but in the sense of its organic content in the "cultural"
element of architecture. In its essence, the elegant gesture of enveloping a
transformed slope by a curved trajectory means radical eqalization of
architecture and landscape in which each of the two elements also follows its
own "logics" and the "logics" of that other element.
As
this a best for a kindergarten, its main facilities are placed on the
"ground floor", which here literally means a storey that is on the
ground all the way, although its height level changes permanently. The curved
belt thus follows the inclination of the filled slope, so that all eight
kindergarten and six nursery units have a corresponding outer space at the
level of the encircled terrain, roofed over by a deep, continuous eaves. The
pedagogic idea of "classes in the open" here sees its possible
realisation. Instead with "open" terraces in "open" space,
which often includes both a surrounding fence and a view of nearby parking
lots, the kindergarten and nursery units are facing their own roofed-over outer
space, and over it to the encircled, but not fenced-in common outer space. It
is important to stress that what we have here is "the first public
area" many children are faced with and which unifies natural an urban
properties. At the highest point of the "ground floor" is the
multi-purpose area. The spatial rest, the difference in volumes of the
"artificial" and the "natural" element, has been assigned
to the management and the service facilities of the kindergarten.
An important aspect of each
public "project" is to remain within the narrow bounderies of set
public funding, meet the increasing number of tehnical, security and similar
demands, and work on the spatial concept, but still also ensure the adequate
final materiality of the "project" in the form of a completed public
building. The materiality of the new
Sesvete kindergarten befits a public building that finally manifests countless
immaterial fluxes in the material world, including rule books and laws,
competitions and juries, voters and their representatives. It is simple and
restrained, modest in price, but still ensuring the required quality in usage and
maintenance.
written by: Krunoslav
Ivanisin