Kindergarten – a roof for children


The new San Giorgio Kindergarten defines the southern edge of a rectangular embankment with a large roof—a horizontal slab—positioned between the elementary school, a wooded area with a biotope, and the middle school, while keeping the northern part open as a reference space. The old road between the elementary school and the new kindergarten has been transformed into a school square. The four sections are arranged on a single level, beneath the large roof and in close contact with the outdoors to the north and south. To the east and west, the space is instead defined by reinforced concrete walls, which also divide the space into two compartments, each containing two sections. Each compartment has a central glazed patio with an elliptical opening to the sky, around which two mirrored sections are arranged, sharing the movement activity classroom. The patio and its garden serve as a source of light, a reference, and a divider, around which activities take place. Each section’s space is completely open, organized by the structure into functional teaching areas separated only by 1.5-meter-high furniture-partitions. The construction system consists of a reinforced concrete base and a large wooden roof composed of a series of beams supported by four longitudinal structural axes: centrally by two arched concrete walls, and laterally (north and south) by a structure formed from a horizontal and vertical layering of wooden beams creating niches towards the arcades. These four longitudinal axes support closely spaced transverse wooden beams that form the roof structure.