OM Nursery in Hitachi-Omiya

Location Hitachi-Omiya, Ibaraki, Japan

Client / operator WB Social Welfare Corporation

Architects HIBINOSEKKEI + Youji no Shiro + KIDS DESIGN LABO www.hibinosekkei.com

Author Kaho Hayakawa

Photos Toshinari Soga (studio BAUHAUS)

Official opening August 2020

Construction costs JPY 572 million (EUR 4.4 million)

ACTIVITIES IN NATURE IN- AND OUTDOORS

OM NURSERY IN HITACHI-OMIYA, IBARAKI

The OM nursery is surrounded by rice fields and forests. Contact with beautiful and abundant nature helps children develop healthy bodies and inventive minds. This is how the concept of a house that provides warmth for the children was born, inspired by a greenhouse and designed by HIBINOSEKKEI and Youji no Shiro and the KIDS DESIGN LABO. In addition, the facility offers five activities to activate children and to lay the foundations for healthy physical exercise behaviour in the future.

This project addresses the problematic decline in children‘s physical activity. Recently, the number of children playing indoors and using electrical equipment has increased, while the number of public parks in Japan has decreased. In a survey, more than 90 % of parents said that their children play outside much less compared to when they themselves were young. However, physical activity habits in childhood have a great influence on later physical performance. The foundations for healthy exercise habits must therefore be laid in childhood. Five opportunities to get moving Normally, the standard corridor width of children‘s facilities is 1.2 m. However, the corridor of this facility has a width of 2.8 m, which is more than double the standard. This way, the children can obtain sufficient exercise even indoors, and rainy days are no longer a restriction to movement. Moreover, since the classroom is open to the wide corridor, the children can extend their play from the classroom to the corridor.

The climbing net encourages children to be physically active. This play equipment encourages many physical movements that are part of the basic movement sequences that children should master in early childhood, such as grasping, crawling, hanging, climbing, and supporting their own weight.

Children can play in a pool at any time of the year. Depending on the season, they can create different games. For example, in summer they can play with water and in autumn they can collect fallen leaves in the pool and invent their own games. By designing the bathroom as a play space, it has become a place where the children feel comfortable and enjoy visiting. Facing the courtyard, the bathroom is bright and cosy and has many steps that encourage play.

Among the pilotis between the classroom and the parents‘ care room, the children can play on rainy days, and in the hot summer they can escape the strong sunlight. There, they can also play with water and mud and move around without having to worry about keeping things clean.

Outdoor feeling even indoors The shape of the surrounding fields creates a corridor in the middle, which is laid out like a footpath between rice fields. The ceiling light conveys the feeling of being in nature, even when indoors. The use of metal for the exterior suggests that children are strongly protected. The use of natural materials for the interior creates a warm atmosphere.

The three-dimensional climbing net promotes children‘s physical skills and their sense of balance. In the playground, where they can experience nature up close, they can cover long distances without interruption and move around in a playful way.

In this way, the nursery in the rice fields not only blends into its surroundings, but is also the focal point of the local community here. Like a warm greenhouse that raises seedlings, this facility watches over the children and develops their physical skills and inventive minds.