School A+

Gymnasium А+ is designed for 600 students. Public and administrative functions are located on the ground floor. There is also the educational hub for club meetings, lectures with its own exit to the courtyard. On the first floor, there is an assembly hall for 200 seats. One aisle of the first floor is given to the junior school. The recreation area here is adapted to the needs of children: during the breaks, they can lie on the "grass", hide in the "houses" or ride the "vines". On the second floor, apart from the classes, there are also public spaces: a light art studio, a rehearsal room, and a lecture hall for 150 seats. Special curtains on the windows allow transforming the lecture theater into a cinema hall. The courtyard is designed in the form of an amphitheater. In good weather, it is planned to conduct part of the lessons and general school activities, concerts, and performances.

The site is located on the edge of Comfort Town residential area at the intersection of two small streets. Nearby there is a railway line, which gave a sanitary protection zone of 100 m. Because of this, only a "patch" remained for construction, but around it, there is a large free area, where we placed a park, play and sports grounds, and a stadium. Having calculated the insolation norms, the architects came to the optimal form a square building with a courtyardwell. One of the main architectural features of the school is the roof. It continues the theme of pitched roofs of Comfort Town. It is asymmetrical, so there is no identical angle of view on facades. The building of the school is achromatic, but it is based on a colorful inner yard. Also, it creates a contrast with residential development on the background, so architects accentuated the interesting shape of the building and functional specialty of the school. This project focuses on materials, unusual texture of metal, special stucco, and specially imported Armenian basalt.

We wanted to make the gymnasium ascetic - not only to contrast with the bright houses of Comfort Town but also to express the idea of fundamental education. Simultaneously, the school has to look friendly and open. Form, color, and materials work for all these tasks. The budget did not allow to make the facades completely with stone, so a compromise had to be found. The architects have found suitable plaster with the natural chaos of inclusions of different shades of gray and black. We selected Armenian basalt as a suitable material because it is not very widespread and recognizable, therefore, it does not refer to museums or memorial structures. So, the lower tier is lined with textured blocks of basalt - a powerful foundation from which "tiles" of vertically rusticated plaster of various thicknesses rush upward. Another shade of gray is the metal roof with free slopes. There is also a field with 160 wells, 60-meters depth, which completely provides the school with heat and cold for a geothermal heat pump.