The Wonder Years Nursery School is Dubai Sport City’s very own purpose built kindergarten nursery that ties the indoors and outdoors with playful spatiality.
Working on the client’s brief to maximise the potential of the site, Delhi NCR based architects, r+d studio envisioned the twelve classrooms strung around a common central space that facilitates learning beyond the physical boundaries of classrooms. The central court is designed as the soul of the nursery, bringing the children together in a hub of programs, such as an art zone, a gymnasium, a role play area and an open courtyard.
The main concept behind the planning of the nursery was to design a space that blurs the indoors and outdoors with the learning environment such that the built environment stimulates and aids in development of the students and their cognitive skills. By creating multiple uses of the same spaces, the teachers and the students are able to define the complex relationship that transpires between ‘space’ and it’s ‘use’. This substantiates the integral philosophy by which the architects look at design – the phenomenology of space and its association to a variable program. Through the uses and events that conspire within the nursery, the design can, and will evolve into a type of its own that is tangible and corporeal to uninhibited learning.
The kindergarten nursery is a ground only structure sitting amidst the concrete towers of Dubai sports city. r+d studio have sensitively composed color with the natural stones which were a mandatory requirement by the local authorities to create a building that stands out in its neighborhood despite its scale. The use of color, natural materials and light were a key to realizing the design environment in conjunction with the planning. To achieve the balance the roof of the nursery has been punctured with skylights to allow natural light to penetrate to all parts of the school. The bold primary colors, accentuated by ambient natural light, were vital in creating the vision as perceived by the architects.
Drawings:
Credits:
Architecture: R+D Studio, India
Developer: Vineeta Nayyar
Team: Shikha Doogar, Shridhar Rao, Aditi Bhatia, Samiksha Khanna, Prasant Behera, Dipanshu Gola
Program: British Curriculum Nursery
Collaborators:
Area: 10,500 sqft.
Completion: 2015
Photography: Edmund Sumner
Write Up: Niveditaa Gupta
