Work submitted for the competition
"Best Diploma Architecture"
The purpose of the engineering thesis is to create a study of the design of a kindergarten for refugee children on the example of the concept of the Assistance Center with temporary housing and a kindergarten for refugees from Ukraine. The detailed study includes only the building of the kindergarten in Gdansk.
visualizations
© Zuzanna Mówińska
The guiding idea of the Around Hope project is to help acclimatize people affected by the hardships of war. Children are particularly vulnerable to the trauma associated with the experience of the conflict and the sudden abandonment of their homes, and the project aims to provide especially the youngest with a chance for a new beginning in a place where they will feel safe and stable. The Assistance Center with kindergarten is intended to provide refugees with a substitute for the normal life they have been deprived of. The project is an expression of human solidarity and support for those in distress, and is a symbolic reference to "putting down roots" in a new place becoming a new home for refugees.
sunshine patterns
© Zuzanna Mówińska
Project goals:
- To develop a nursery school design for refugee children that will allow them to cope with the trauma of war and relocation, facilitate assimilation into the new environment, contact with the language and Polish children, and create a space that is friendly and safe, including for children with disabilities;
- creating a place integrated with nature, where soothing greenery breaks through into the facility, creating the nucleus of a garden, and the designed surroundings of the facility through green play spaces and vegetable gardens create opportunities to harness the therapeutic power of nature;
- complementing the nursery school's design with a refugee center with temporary housing.
The symbolic path taken by the refugees leads to a green atrium that is a symbol of hope. Playrooms are located around it, and a pathway running along the atrium points the way towards a new, safe reality, symbolized by the play garden and trees growing on the axis of the staircases.
plan of level 0
© Zuzanna Mówińska
In order to achieve a friendly scale of the building, blending harmoniously with its surroundings, the building was designed on the basis of modules, connected by a central space of a green atrium. Thanks to this solution, the building "grows" in a way analogous to its roots, letting light in through the glass roof and opening up to the green space of the garden.
cross-section A-A
© Zuzanna Mówińska
The building is designed along two main compositional axes: one of them, east-west, connects at its ends two glazed evacuation staircases; the other, north-south, forms an extension of the compositional axis, which is formed by the street "flowing into" Śniadeckich Street and the glazing in the temporary residence building.
cross-section B-B
© Zuzanna Mówińska
The kindergarten was designed clustered, in an atrial layout. Referring to the guiding idea, the central point is a green atrium illuminated by a glazed roof with a representative staircase, which is physically and visually accessible (through glazing inside) from all kindergarten rooms. The building consists of modules divided thematically. Located at the main entrance, the reception area with administrative rooms "blocks" access of outsiders to the kindergarten premises. Each of the five preschool classrooms is designed in an analogous way, with access to a private, spacious toilet for children (including those with disabilities) and a utility room. On the second floor are thematic rooms, such as sensory or language rooms, as well as the offices of a psychologist and speech therapist. There is a possibility of combining the dining room and language rooms into one open space for performances and theaters. The attic is dedicated to art therapy: musical and creative. An important element of the project was to provide children with the opportunity to work through traumas and difficulties in a new environment using effective, modern methods of child therapy.
visuals
© Zuzanna Mówińska
Outside, a play garden was designed, with the author's idea for play equipment referring to the modules in the project. The garden space provides access to greenery and sunlight. Places for gardening activities have also been planned here.
The building was designed with special attention to the needs of the youngest affected by the war crisis. The functional-spatial layout is designed to help children feel comfortable and safe. The solutions used offer pleasant spaces in which a different play of light takes place depending on the time of day, caused by the carefully designed wooden lamella facade, developed as a proprietary solution in the engineering design.
Zuzanna MÓWIŃSKA
Illustrations: © Author
