Island Kindergarten

01 Idea

In Bayraklı we are bringing a kindergarten and a primary school together in a single building. The site is long and narrow; to protect the garden, we are shaping the building not upward but sideways, as a long, low three-storey bar. The volume’s south face belongs entirely to the classrooms: each floor works like a garden with the wide terrace in front of it. For children, a school should be made not of corridors but of open air, light and classrooms that look onto one another. So we are keeping the scale at human height.

02 Space

On the ground floor the kindergarten classrooms open straight onto the garden; on the first and second floors the primary classrooms step out onto south-facing terraces. A bright corridor along the north facade gathers the stairs, toilets and staff rooms. At the centre of the volume a gallery void links all three floors, with a tiered seating stair — the place for morning assemblies and performances. The dining hall and multipurpose hall sit at the western end, at garden level. The total area is about 3,900 square metres.

03 Material and construction

The reinforced concrete frame is complete; prefabricated facade panels are now being installed from the scaffolding that runs the full length of the facade. The panels are pale fibre-reinforced concrete elements made in the factory, allowing fast, dry assembly on site. Terrace balustrades are slender steel and laminated glass. Inside the classrooms, every surface a child touches is timber: beech-lined walls and linoleum floors on cork underlay. We chose low-emission, solvent-free products, and indoor air quality will be measured before handover.

04 Light

All the classrooms face south; the depth of the terraces and the slab projection above were calculated to cut the high summer sun and admit the low winter sun. The northern corridor opens to the classrooms through high windows that bring soft light from a second direction, so every classroom is lit from two sides. A rooflight above the gallery void brings daylight into the heart of the building. As evening use is limited, we are restricting external lighting to the entrance and garden paths.