kinder – circle – garten

fuji kindergarten, tokyo

tezuka architects

It is a school designed to encourage movement and freedom. Its floor plan is an oval with the rooms arranged around the perimeter and open in the center. Children can move around the building and on its roof, which looks like a wooden circular path. Here, they can play, run, observe the view and invent ways to go down to the earthen courtyard.

The architect calls his concept the “nostalgic future”, where he looks at the way children would naturally choose to play without gadgets and screens, then facilitates it with future- forward designs.

The project has been awarded this year’s Moriyama RAIC International Prize, which recognizes a work of architecture considered “transformative within its societal context”.

sources: dezeen.com, tezuka-arch.com