Take on Recess

A New Take on Recess

VMDPE Design created a haven for schoolchildren in China.

Designed by VMDPE, the IBOBI SUPER SCHOOL is in Dachong, the tech hub of Shenzhen. The project is located on the terrace of the second floor of a mall—one of few places in the area with large outdoor space. The outdoor terrace and the indoor space are well connected, forming an enclosed site. All of the spaces are flexible in design, offering up multiple functions for imaginative students.

When children at the IBOBI Super School want to compete in sports, they can use the entire space to run and play. The VMDPE design team fully took into account the different types of sports and safety based on the function of the different outdoor areas. In addition to functional flexibility, VMDPE wanted to provide flexibility in thinking. In contrast to specific games on the playground, the teaching area is designed to allow children to use their own imagination in a playful way. Some children’s seating areas can be used to play pretend as single-plank bridges or boats. All arrangements feature both specific functions and flexibility. China’s dense metropolitan areas means its schoolchildren often attend schools that lack outdoor green spaces for learning, exploration, and play. However, in Dachong, the technology hub in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, you will find Children’s Paradise Downtown – IBOBI Super School.

Designed by VMDPE Design, the original vision of IBOBI Super School was to create a comprehensive kindergarten that integrates art, science, and sports education. At the same time, the VMDPE Design team wanted to create a place of community where everyone can come together and celebrate work and play within the tech hub. “That is to say, our goal is to create an open-spirited kindergarten,” says Vinci Chen, VMDPE’s team design director.

The IBOBI Super School site in Shenzhen is surrounded by a dense residential and commercial zone, busy with high-tech companies, and the area had no kindergarten with enough outdoor space for children. VMDPE took advantage of a second-floor area of a shopping mall with a huge outdoor plaza to bring their design concept to fruition.

“Our key design elements are the redefinition of outdoor functionality, creating not only spaces for sports but also social interaction areas, hand-craft activities, outdoor STEAM courses, and greenhouse functionalities,” Chen says.

The entire field needed to be a place where kids could run and play while at the same time offering a rich and varied environment with unlimited recreational opportunities. The indoor space and outdoor terrace are combined into an enclosed space, offering a haven of sorts for the schoolchildren.

“We didn’t want to create any space restrictions with walls, but to create visually understandable partitions for different areas using iconic structures and interactive installations, such as a windmill, robot, and weather meter,” Chen says.

Sustainable, child-safe materials were used throughout the project. Inside the school you’ll find various base layer materials, including E0 grade environmental protection boards, moisture-proof plaster boards, environmental protection paint-free boards, water-based paint boards, thermal transfer printing over aluminum material, inorganic protective coating (conversion layers), and vinyl flooring. Outside you’ll find plastic wood flooring, thermal transfer printing over aluminum material, stainless steel paint, and EPDM rubber flooring.

One of the key challenges of transforming the space into an exceptional learning environment was determining how to make the partitions for different areas, as well as how to differentiate the design content for the different activities while keeping an integrated structure and still having movement for sports.

“The site itself is in a hard and irregular state,” Chen says. “We hoped to use the different unique elements for each area to create imaginary lines that lead to the sense of different partitions maintaining a soft and natural environment for the whole space.”

The outdoor teaching environment boasts structures that allow children to play and interact however they choose. “The school has had a very good enrollment of new students,” Chen says. “Also during the construction phase, the whole site attracted a lot of attention and discussion from the surrounding residents, and it was even recorded daily on the school’s own social media. Now everyone is happy to have an awesome kindergarten.” g

The design is based on Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. VMDPE aimed to practice the psychomotor theory proposed by this design philosophy in the design of children’s space. Above, the kitchen is equipped with a transparent window for children to look inside, so the students can observe as the food they eat every day is prepared. Boundaries between indoor classrooms and outdoor spaces are blurred by porches that allow people to enter and exit adjoining spaces freely under different weather conditions. The corridor is elevated to the same level as the classroom, forming a platform for easy accessibility.

While staying consistent with the main design philosophy, VMDPE’s design aims to offer an enriched experience for children. For example, they arranged a “kinder art gallery” in a corner to present the school’s highlights on campus. The team says it’s elements like these that make the children feel respected, and it strengthens the connection between families and the kindergarten. “We want children to be in a space that encourages curiosity so they are always ready to explore,” says Vinci Chen, VMDPE’s team design director. The spaces are also dominated by splashes of color and plentiful natural light.

SITE PLAN

PROJECT: IBOBI Super School ARCHITECT: VMDPE Design LOCATION: Shenzhen City

Completion: May 2021 Size: 15,350 square feet Construction: Qianlima Constructions Company Metal Fabrication: Shenzhen Shengjing Furniture Company