When designing kindergartens and schools, architects around the world adhere to similar principles - these buildings should be bright, light and safe for children. That is why the architecture of such institutions very often uses simple geometric volumes of bright colors, wide glazed surfaces and skylights of various configurations. Russian projects are no exception. For example, the triumphant of this year - the school No. 1414, already described more than once, has memorable snow-white facades with bright red inserts and the same window frames.
The architectural design of school no. 2014 in Yuzhnoye Butovo is close to the building of school # 1414 in white with bright orange accents. The architectural image of this school is built on a roof that rolls down to the ground, which is made up of separate arcuate segments that cross each other. Grass and bushes are planted on each of them, and part of the roof has been completely turned into a green area with avenues of trees.
Two more school buildings presented at Zodchestvo-2009 use similar techniques. The block of primary grades of school No. 290 and the educational building of school No. 272 (both - JSC "ARST") are multi-colored rectangles superimposed on each other, so that their facades look like colored paper appliqués. The primary school building of School No. 290 is built on a play of rectangular and rounded volumes cut through by windows of different sizes and shapes, while School No. 272 is a contrasting alternation of bright volumes protruding and deeply recessed into the facade.
The school-gymnasium in Odintsovo was solved in a completely different way (Stepanov V. I., Stepanov A. V., Shurygin D. M., Kiryushina L. A., Popov A. A.). The three-story brick-monolithic building, round in plan, is put on supports and horizontally divided by halls into two autonomous groups of classrooms. In one part there are classrooms, in the other - an impressive sports complex, which includes a swimming pool and a large gym with a treadmill, gymnastics, volleyball and basketball courts. The school is also zoned vertically: on the ground floor there are exhibition, auditorium and dining rooms, a winter garden, on the third floor there are study rooms designed for maximum natural lighting. The latter is ensured by numerous skylights scattered across the circular roof. These architectural elements have a distinctly diverse design and resemble either the Egyptian pyramids in miniature, or the "sail" of the famous opera in Sydney.
The greatest freedom of shaping at Zodchestvo-2009 reigned, of course, in the section of children's architectural and artistic creativity, where many adult architects were not too lazy to look for fresh ideas, including for the architecture of children's educational institutions. The architecture in the minds of children is really as fantastic as possible and thus free from any restrictions, be it the number of square meters, rationality of layouts or intricately laid underground communications. Hanging cities, bridge houses, multi-colored skyscrapers and anthill cities - perhaps only the most daring architectural avant-garde could compare in the number of compositional and plastic ideas with this small exhibition of children's works. However, this does not mean that all the projects presented on it are naive and utopian by definition.
In the review-competition of children's works, held under the predictably optimistic title "The Future Begins Today", there were presented almost professional projects exploring the shape, texture and color in architecture. For example, the Modulor Children's Architectural Studio in its work "Harmony of Color" explores the relationship between colors, and the Avant-garde design school in its works shows how metamorphoses occur on the way from graphics to volume and relief.
Perhaps the main thing that Zodchestvo-2009 showed was that children's architectural creativity and architecture for children in Russian practice have finally begun to converge. The fact that children imitate adults is nothing new, but that adults, when designing buildings intended for the smallest, guessed to speak the language of children, is a long-awaited breakthrough in professional consciousness. And we can only hope that now this trend will be able to cross the borders of Moscow and the Moscow region.
