The building of the school "Point of the Future", which was completed and commissioned in February 2020 in Irkutsk, was built according to the architectural concept of the consortium of the Danish bureau Cebra and the Russian UNK project, which won the international competition in 2015 [CEBRA head of the consortium, UNK project their Russian colleagues, landscape architects Vega Landskab, engineers Niras].
The project of the school is very sonorous, the ideas are comprehensively progressive: modern educational methods, no selection according to abilities - those who apply first will be taken - and 15% of adopted children, including those with special needs, whose families [large families of so-called professional parents, - approx. Ed.] will live in a cottage community built next to the school building: "for the first time in Russia, the school curriculum will include elements of inclusion and social adaptation." In short, according to the plan, "Point of the Future" should give the best to the most unfortunate: modern education, based on an individual approach and a high degree of adaptability, to orphans of not the most prosperous region of the Russian Federation.
The idea of a progressive school with the integration of orphans, as you know, was expressed in 2011 by Tina Kandelaki, she also became the initiator of the project, whose development in Irkutsk is explained by the social situation in the region. In 2017, there were more orphans in the Irkutsk region than in other regions of the Russian Federation, now the statistics are improving, but not very quickly. The project was “announced” in 2013, at the same time the development of the program began. According to Tina Kandelaki, "For Russia, this project is like designing the headquarters of Google for America."
Basic education in the "Point of the Future" is supposed to be free, even families in cottages, as the organizers emphasize, will not pay rent, but only "communal". All this is without government funding, since the school is a completely private charitable project: both the construction and support of the subsequent functioning of the complex were taken over by the New House Foundation, a native of the Irkutsk region, Albert Avdolyan. The construction of the building cost 6 billion rubles. The first academic year at Point of the Future began on September 1, 2020, applications were collected in April. The school supports the full cycle of education from kindergarten to high school and, with all the progressiveness of the program, complies with the standards of the Russian Federation, both educational and construction. In three years, by 2023, the total number of students is planned to reach 1,022, about 150 of them should be adopted children. Cottages for 20 families.
The training program, as well as the training of teachers, was developed by the Center for the Development of Educational Systems"
Smart School”, the head of the center Mark Satran also participated in the preparation of the technical specification for the architectural competition, which he wrote together with KB“Strelka”.
“When developing an architectural project, we set ourselves the task of making the building itself an educational tool. For colleagues from the Danish architecture firm CEBRA, it was an inspiring challenge. In the course of joint workshops, they instantly responded to requests, together with us they worked out daily educational scenarios in the projected space and accordingly adjusted engineering and planning decisions.
The most difficult part was to fit architectural and educational ideas into the Procrustean bed of Russian norms. In an extremely regulated kindergarten, it was necessary to fence off individual group cells and connect them with corridors to please external requirements, which contradicts all modern trends. In the rest of the buildings, it was possible to preserve the multi-connectivity and public spaces saturated with educational functions, adjusting them in accordance with the standards.
The building was supposed to embody the idea of unity, which is fundamental for a charitable social project, to help the child make choices, inspire him to act, reflect his growing up, teach him to responsibly manage space and his education. The architects proposed a circle of separate buildings under a unifying shelter, where the child, as he grows up, moves from one building to another, and the daily route can be chosen from many options. The result is a complete reflection of the educational idea in the architectural and spatial solution."
The Danish architecture company CEBRA, which spearheaded the winning consortium, specializes, among other things, in modern school buildings that are in line with new educational concepts, or even, in the Danes' own words, creating spaces that can “teach by themselves”.
The proposed concept, according to its author's description, was not subordinated to either a given program, let alone any one educational paradigm, but rather sought to follow the "energy of learning as such." The main idea is flexibility and diversity, and between many different functions there is a "gravitational" attraction, "like between stars in a galaxy", contributing to growth and development.
All this is well described in
video
of the competition concept from the Cebra website:
“The competition program was aimed at finding a new type of school based on the knowledge and logic of modern research in the field of pedagogy.
We have achieved this through a recognizable architecture with a strong identity. Several volumes with gable roofs are grouped into a ring cut from the outside in a circle: as if several separate buildings were connected by a common roof. Large outlets of eaves, protecting from the sun and rain, will make it possible to use the external space at different times of the year. In addition, the educational program of the classrooms, according to our plan, should be continued in the space of the center of the ring, in the green courtyard-patio: it should become active, lively and saturated. Quiet contemplative class spaces that balance the activity of the center, on the other hand, are grouped along the outer contour, taking advantage of the beauty of the surrounding landscapes.
We see architecture as a learning tool in itself, it can stimulate our ability to learn. I encourage you to check out WISE, an e-book published by the research arm of CEBRA, and our sensor-based smart school design technology called Common Sense."
Summarizing the words of Karsten Primdahl from CEBRA, we can say that the school, firstly, develops from the inside out, accumulating the energy of learning, splashing out children's activity into the yard in search of a catalyst for the educational process, and freezes before the beauty of the surrounding landscapes. And there is something to admire: the site is located at the southern border of the city, near Cherguteevsky Bay, behind the airport and outside the Solnechny district, which is considered the most prestigious in the city, but unlike even Solnechny, here, a little further south, not five-story buildings prevail, but cottage settlements … So the surroundings are stone houses with pitched roofs, with which the zigzag silhouette of the school noticeably echoes, thus fitting into the context.
The outlets of the cornices mentioned by Primdal are supported by thin columns - in fact, these are porticoes, and they have two tasks: to protect the windows from direct sunlight so that additional blinds and curtains are not needed, and to develop maximum activity in this space, intermediate between “inside” and “outside” Protected from rain, but open to fresh air. Most of us know from childhood experience what an important thing a schoolyard is, even in any typical project that we just didn’t study there. And here there is also a transitional link, which, moreover, echoes the ideas of the classics of the history of education, because how did the great philosophers of antiquity, the Stoics and Peripatetics teach? Walking in the fresh air in the shade of the portico.
The spaces under the columns here are apparently invisible, along the outer and inner contours, which makes the school look like an ancient city gathered in a ring, or like a European college built around a courtyard with galleries (here we remember not Aristotle, but Harry Potter). By the way, unlike
Skoltech Herzog and de Meuron, where the chess alternation of rectangular volumes and the same courtyards is enclosed in a strict circular border, here all the contours are very asymmetrical, leaving "air" and emphasizing the resemblance to a mini-city. I asked the architects of CEBRA about the similarities with the Herzog & de Meuron project - they replied that the projects of the "star" Swiss are admirable, but the concept of CEBRA is based on their own searches, begun in the works of 2006-2008, and besides, the similarity ends in a round plan and gable roofs, otherwise everything is different.
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Yuliy Borisov, UNK project
“The project is of colossal complexity and scale, unprecedented for Russia. Compared to Moscow, this is a school of the level of Khoroshkola and Letovo, but "Point of the Future" is larger and is located very far from the capital, in Irkutsk. Therefore, I consider it very correct that our colleagues from the Danish CEBRA, a bureau with experience in research in the field of architecture, developing new trends in the field of education, were involved in the work, in whose portfolio there were already implemented projects of modern schools. We often called each other, discussed the concept; the main idea belongs to the Danes, but I must say, and we managed to add something. This work has greatly enriched us, gave us useful experience in the design of school buildings.
The image of the building is built on two main themes: since an important starting point of the project was to create a place in which orphans would be comfortable studying, the circle is a kind of wall that should work for the effect of security. It is very important for these children to feel safe. The second idea is a house, hence the contour of the pitched roofs; it is important that children perceive school as a second home.
The spatial model is based on two key features of the new model of education: it should instill in people responsibility, primarily for themselves, independence and the ability to educate themselves. A person learns all his life, in modern society it is more and more relevant, all the time it is necessary to master something new, more and more cross-platform knowledge is required. Multifunctionality and flexibility are the basis of the modern world, and we laid this in the curriculum of a modern school. We even have different windows, somewhere small, somewhere large. Children are immediately taught to live, work, study, interact in complex spaces. A significant part of the training does not take place according to the traditional model “teacher and children at their desks”, but differently, for example, in a playful way; children learn and teach each other, even during recess.
We appreciate this project, and have put a lot of effort to ensure that, in the course of further development and forced reductions, we take care of both the educational concept underlying it and the ideas of our Danish colleagues”.
The reworking of the concept, created jointly by CEBRA and UNK project, was caused primarily by the financial crisis: the ruble fell and the building, according to the architects, had to be reduced in price by about 20%, and the main difficulty was that it was impossible to simply sacrifice some part of the,but budget optimization had to be approached comprehensively, keeping everything essential. Somewhere I had to replace materials. Special attention was paid to the "snow pockets" in the sinuses of the gable roofs. UNK project carried out the entire project from stage P to completion and interiors, took over the functions of a general designer.
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“It was all very difficult,” explains Yuliy Borisov. - In addition to budget cuts, it was necessary to comply with all standards, including seismic hazard up to 8 points. The school must be super safe. We were helped by the experience and the presence in the bureau of various departments, from engineering to interior design."
“On the whole, our Russian colleagues were as loyal to the original project as possible,” says Karsten Primdahl. - Perhaps, if we compare the final result with the competitive concept, some design solutions and some aesthetic subtleties of CEBRA would have been implemented differently. But overall I think the result is good; on closer inspection, I would say the solution to the columns and skylights, colors, textures and final materials can be questionable. I can see that the spatial organization program supports the principles of activity-based learning, but I find it difficult to evaluate the program at a detailed level, since I am not so familiar with the final project and the ideas that ultimately form its basis.
One of the problems was that it was required to combine two types of schools: new and traditional, subject to outdated standards; it was necessary to follow a code that in itself implied inefficient use of space. I am sure that the standards require revision and updating, this would make the construction more economical and would reduce the operating costs of maintaining the building, and therefore, benefit from more funds for the training itself,”the architect emphasizes.
The interiors of the school, as already mentioned, are built on the idea of flexibility and combination of different spaces, from traditional classrooms to various halls and atriums with many benches, which is designed for communication and a varied pastime. The severity and some dryness of the original project, almost completely white and monochrome, revived interspersed with positive light green, orange, rich yellow.
“The interiors in the CEBRA concept were minimalistic and even ascetic, built on neutrality and lack of color, which is not typical for Russia. What we have added is built on one of the ideas of the complex - that the interior grows with the child, and the scale and emotional perception. In the spaces for babies, we added textures with which they could interact. We gradually increased the scale of the interior according to the age of the child. Added a bit of color, accents and murals. But these are only accents, in general we followed the concept, emphasized something, revived, strengthened something."
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Indeed, the inclusions are precisely the accents on the wooden benches of the amphitheater, within the frames of different-sized windows and furniture. The general tone of the walls is white, pushing the space apart, it is emphasized by linear lamps on the ceiling, they complement the skylight windows.
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Inside there is a swimming pool and gym, and equipped study rooms.
“In February we received permission to commission the educational complex. The building "Points of the Future" is six buildings located in a circle and united by one common roof. It is not only modern and comfortable, but also reliable, because we are talking about children.
In kindergarten classrooms and groups, large and small windows are located at different heights so that light evenly falls into the classrooms at any time of the day. There are practically no corridors in the complex - large halls, passages, open spaces. Everything so that the children communicate, study, and have a rest.
The project of a Danish company was taken as a basis, and Russian specialists adapted it taking into account local specifics. For example, they took into account the high seismic activity of the region and strengthened the structures. In Irkutsk, temperatures are low in winter and high in summer, so the building was additionally insulated.
I really wanted the complex to reflect the local flavor. We live in a forest region. Therefore, wooden benches from the Scandinavian countries were replaced with benches made of Siberian wood. We have been looking for Irkutsk masters for a long time who will make thematic playgrounds for kids. As a result, we got unique gaming complexes that also perform an educational function. A large landscape park has already begun to be laid out around the building. It will consist primarily of native plants.”
In a word, the Irkutsk school is a very progressive, large-scale educational undertaking. Aimed at the future with the best methods, they are echoed by architectural solutions, carefully carried from concept to implementation despite the difficulties of the financial crisis. This is how the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum comes to mind, its whole history, and it is not so important that there was a corridor, but here they get rid of the corridors. Two hundred years have passed, the methods have changed, but the hope that correct, new teaching will give a better person has not changed: children will grow up, learn, and will contribute to a better world. Yet the amazing thing is these ideas of enlightenment. There must be hope.
