Qilin Middle School / YUANISM ARCHITECTS
Qilin Middle School / YUANISM ARCHITECTS
Text description provided by the architects. Shenzhen Nanshan Experimental Education Group Qilin Middle School is located west of Yiyuan Road and north of Zhengyun Road in Nanshan District, surrounded by high-rise residential buildings and high-density urban villages. The existing campus area is 20,083 square meters. In order to meet the needs of the campus expansion, the original public welfare parking lot of 7,000 square meters on the east side is canceled and added to the campus. After the land consolidation, the total campus area is 27,083 square meters, and the current 36 classes are expanded to 48 classes. At the same time, the comprehensive teaching building, administrative office, canteen, lecture hall, sports facilities, and teachers’ dormitory are newly built. After the expansion, the total construction area is 64,125 square meters, and the floor area ratio is 1.40. At the same time, in order to ensure the integrity of the campus, the facade and space of the current teaching building need to be upgraded systematically.
Function integration and reasonable partition. The current teaching building layout is a typical Chinese character “日” shaped structure. There are three ordinary classrooms (A, B, and C three buildings) on the west side, a library, wind and rain playground and co-class classrooms on the east side, teachers’ offices and dormitories on the north side, and the main entrance is from the north side of the site. In this design, following the logic of campus spatial structure and considering the shading effect of sunshine from high-rise residential buildings adjacent to the south, a new six-story professional teaching complex building (BUILDING D) is built here, including professional classrooms, multi-functional classrooms, teachers’ offices, and other functions. The north-south axis of the campus links four teaching buildings and connects three enclosed teaching courtyards. In addition, in order to meet the demand for administrative office space in the school, a teacher’s office building (Building G) is extended to the east of the original office building in the north. After the extension, Buildings D and G together with the original teaching building (A, B, and C building) constitute a complete teaching area.
The design expands the current 200-meter runway to 250 meters and places it on the east side of the campus. A 15-story teachers’ dormitory (Building H) is built on the north side of the campus, and a canteen and support services are set up on the lower part, forming a complete living and sports area. Therefore, the overall functional layout after the reconstruction and expansion is bounded by the central axis of the campus, with the teaching courtyard teaching area with grades as a unit on the west side and the sports living area on the east side. The sports and teaching zoning is reasonable. In addition, after the current public parking lot land is incorporated into the campus land, new parking spaces will be expanded on the second underground floor of the new building, and different entrances and exits will be set for community sharing.
Reasonable use of height difference & space expansion. The design makes full use of 2-4 meters of north-south terrain elevation difference on the east side of the campus and sets up 250 meters of playground board. Under the board, there are canteen, wind and rain playground, overhead sports and traffic transport and dredging center. At the same time, a lecture hall for 800 people will be set in the lower part of the third inner school of new teaching. The roof of the lecture hall will serve as a platform for students’ activities, which is equal to the elevation of the first floor of the existing building. The massive space functions are set in the underground or semi-underground level, which maximizes the space for ground activities. At the same time, the lower space of the playground board circulates and penetrates into each other, forming an all-weather shared open public space; The elevation difference of the road topography on the southeast side and the installation of porous sunken courtyards and patios between the old and new buildings create favorable conditions for the ventilation and lighting of the large space under the large slab of the sports ground.
System implantation & organic link. The coexistence of old and new buildings on campus presents a decentralized layout, which requires a strong public open space system to organically link each teaching unit to form the integrity of campus space. For the ground space of the first floor under the playground board, the design emphasizes the connection and penetration of the three teaching courtyards on the west side and the overhead activity space and the semi-underground space on the east side.
On the playground board, the traffic of the new and old teaching units and the central axis forms a circular closed loop, and on the second floor, the connection bridge and platform with the open space and sports stands on the east side are established. At the same time, the current closed east facade of the wind and rain playground on the second floor is transformed into a transparent grille interface, which strengthens the traffic and visual connection between the teaching space and the open sports space, and also meets the requirement that students can easily reach the sports playground in ten minutes between classes. The integration of corridor, teaching courtyard, stadium stands, landscape steps, and other elements forms a continuous, flowing, and integrated public open space system, which links the old and new buildings with different functions such as teaching, office, dormitory, and sports, making the campus more organic as a whole.
Rework the axis & dynamic interface. The current campus layout is a typical Chinese character “day” shaped structure. The central axis of the campus is connected with the west teaching courtyard, the east library, the wind and rain playground, and the lecture hall. The courtyard space is single and lacks identification, while the central corridor space is closed and single on both sides of the interface, which is the reason for the lack of vitality and boring campus space. The design reshaped the campus vitality ridge, made the interface transparent on both sides of the central corridor space, expanded the functional space of the first-floor library, and combined with the partial overhead space of the teaching building, set up exhibitions, reading, and other functions, forming a public, open and energetic central corridor.
At the same time, due to the expansion of the school scale, in order to relieve the instantaneous traffic pressure, the design of the new campus entrance on the south side of the campus, the new building part of the bottom of the overhead, to give way to the pedestrian entrance buffer square, forming the “campus living room”, constitute the continuation of the campus axis. The three-story overhead central corridor, which meets the regional climate characteristics of Shenzhen, forms different axis space nodes with the overhead space of the campus living room in the south and entrance in the north, highlighting the richness and integrity of the main axis space of the campus and creating a sense of place of the campus central corridor. In addition, in order to break the status quo, a single teaching courtyard, and a relatively closed internal interface. In the design, by changing the physical partition into railings and combining the changes of informal space nodes, a richer, transparent, and three-dimensional interface is formed to provide an interesting and changeable sight crossing and space experience.
The campus renovation project involves the interaction and overlap of the old and new complex systems. On the basis of fully respecting the existing campus planning structure, the design adopts an intensive strategy and restrains intervention. Under the limited cost control, the integration and organic link between the old and the new are completed, and through the remodeling of the campus public space system, the vitality of the campus space is stimulated, and the campus takes on a new look.
