Pod House Kindergarten by Liben Design Office is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 Bronze A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design Competition Category.
BronzeInterior· 2021
Pod House Kindergarten
Client: Liben Design Office
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Interior Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #122752The Design
About Pod House Kindergarten
Pod House is a kindergarten interior created inside a former laundry building in Xuhui district, Shanghai. The interior covers an area of 120 square meters. The original L-shaped enclosure is retained, and an irregular arc-shaped volume is added within it. The curved form recalls a pea pod, which gives the design its name. Two central skylights bring daylight inside, while the roof holds a circular track and a play area. Round openings and stainless steel surfaces soften the indoor boundaries. Storage, changing and washing areas occupy the space outside the curved walls.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Pod House Kindergarten is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Pod House Kindergarten is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Pod House Kindergarten splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The project is located at a kindergarten in Xuhui district of Shanghai with enclosed L-shaped. The south and west sides of the base are intensely close to the wall and adjacent to the residential area. The internal facilities are placed at the east side, while the north side is the internal road of the kindergarten. The original function of the project is the abandoned laundry.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Covering an area of 120 square meters, this is a typical project like casting masterpieces in the pigeonholes.
- Tags
- Interior, Commercial, Kindergarten, Nursery School, Modern, Simple, Natural, Art
- Production Technology
- The roof has kept the shape of pods, setting up a circular roof track and a playground for children. Two center skylights provide sufficient lighting for the pea house. A small climbing slope is designed around the circular skylights. A pod-shaped skylight serves as a glass path for children to explore. The relationship between the sight lines from skylights also makes the dialogue in the space more vivid and interesting.
- Design Challenge
- It is asked for making the laundry be rebuilt into a space for students' demands of learning and dancing. Complying with some requirements, the building boundary is not allowed to be over the original campus wall, and the height is not allowed to be out of the original building height. Those external pools, rockery, and other facilities are needed to be retained.
- Research
- Urban renewal is becoming one of the important roles in urban development. In addition to community and business renovation, some schools in the city center are also faced with the problem of land shortage and unable to expand. Therefore, it is worth thinking to solve the problem how to make effective transformation and utilization of the existing campus site for extension of functions and more spaces under constraint conditions.
- Inspiration
- How to outline a fun space for activities and class of children and teachers in this small venue is the initial starting point of the design. Children are lively. They are good runners and explorers. Therefore, the design attempts to build a space that satisfies the curiosity of children and taps the potential of sports based on their activity and psychological characteristics.
- Project Duration
- The project started in January 2018 in Shanghai and finished in August 2019 in Shanghai.
- Operation Flow
- Those indoor different-sized round holes together with the specular reflection of stainless steel and circular skylights of furred ceiling blurred indoor boundary, meanwhile increased dimensional interest.
- Patents
- Copyrights belong to Name Lei Dong, 2019.
- Team Members
- Qian Li
Nicolas Bai
Fang He
Huifang Sun
Yinmei Li
Jiawei Tian - Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Lei Dong, Pod House, 2019.
Image #2: Photographer Lei Dong, Pod House, 2019.
Image #3: Photographer Lei Dong, Pod House, 2019.
Image #4: Photographer Lei Dong, Pod House, 2019.
Image #5: Photographer Lei Dong, Pod House, 2019.
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