Sforzacosta Preschool

Preschool in Macerata, Central Italy, which fosters social interaction and spatial experience. Designed based on typological characteristics and simple construction solutions, the new preschool (catering to children aged 0-6) is built in wood and consists of a series of disjointed volumes organized beneath an ample pitched roof. The building provides an open educational environment where the interconnectedness of spaces and the relationship between indoor and outdoor areas are part of an educational experience aimed at providing children with numerous opportunities for discovery.

With the intention of turning context constraints — a small lot size and very short construction time — into opportunities, the project follows simple typological and construction characters. The new building is configured through a system of solids and voids united by a large pitched roof, which defines the ground footprint of the school and a series of threshold spaces between interior and exterior. Three volumes -that accommodate classrooms, offices, and services- draw a sequence of spaces of diverse forms and proportions. The result is a porous system that has the tension to open up to the outdoor garden: oblique views, changes in the section of the roof, the articulation of spaces is revealed in the transition points between rooms. The architectural layout is based on the (also educational) idea of overcoming the classroom-corridor combination. The surface area for standard classrooms respects minimum regulatory requirements; the space between the classrooms (which houses laboratorial activities) is more generously sized. The idea is that the whole school is an educational landscape.

The layout is maximized, having a very small lot size and wanted to reduce the footprint as much as possible also so as not to steal too much garden space. The structure is made entirely of wood; the walls of the interior volumes as well as the entire façade perimeter constitute the vertical structures, made with the platform frame system. The transparency of the facades allows the regular rhythm of the vertical supports to be read from the outside. The choice of construction system was mainly influenced by the tight deadlines for the building's completion, which were the result of agreements made by the client with the local authority. The building was constructed using platform frame technology for all vertical structures. This aspect was interesting to us for two reasons. On the one hand, for consistency, we were interested in trying to use the same construction technique for both the opaque parts and the facades, also with the aim of revealing the structural and construction system through the glass envelope. Furthermore this technique requires less wood than other technologies (e.g., Xlam) that also involve pre-assembling the walls in the factory.