Primary school embraces its parkside setting

Project: Renovation of the Jinping Lower Primary School

Award: Education, Silver, 2023

Location: Guangdong, China

Architect: Atelier cnS

Client: Government of Longjiang Town, Shunde District, Foshan City

The extended and renovated Jinping Middle School is set at the foot of Jinping Mountain and provides a bridge for the first and second-year students to transition from kindergarten to primary school. Thanks to a lively and colourful renovation and expansion the school can now accommodate 20 grade one and two classes in its revamped accommodation. Imaginative new features include a forest library enclosed in a tree filled courtyard and an activity pavilion overlooking the park.

The designers have intentionally blurred the boundaries between the campus and the parkland, to bring nature into the school. Functional modules including the library, the white stone fencing hall, activity room and other classroom spaces are lightly inserted in between the green spaces, allowing students to explore and learn in a natural environment.

Basic functional spaces in the campus have been optimized and underused areas are reactivated. The lightweight design brings new vitality into the campus with a flexible and innovative design that also repairs the fragmented relationship between the street, campus and park.

Design highlights

Large circular and arched windows in the library, activity pavilion and classrooms frame different perspectives of nature and many large trees have been preserved around the expanded sports grounds. Using the motif of arches as a starting point, the designers have introduced a dramatic entrance arch, an external cloud corridor and an external lotus corridor. A glass arcade corridor leading to the park shows subtle gradations of light and shade.

Photo credit: Siming Wu