• Login / Join
  • About
  • •
  • Contact
  • •
  • Advertising
bustler logo
bustler logo
  • News
  • Competitions
  • Events
  • Bustler is powered by Archinect
  • Sign up for Bustler's Email Newsletters

  • Follow these Bustler feeds:

  • Search

    Search in

  • Submit

    What are you submitting?

    News Pitch
    Competition
    Event
  • Login / Join
  • News|Competitions|Events
  • Search
    | Submit
    | Follow
  • Search in

    What are you submitting?

    News Pitch
    Competition
    Event

    Follow these Bustler feeds:

  • About|Contact|Advertising
  • Login / Join

“A giant oval playhouse filled with joy”: Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects wins 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize

By Justine Testado|

Wednesday, Sep 20, 2017

Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects. Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

That's a wrap for the 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize! Out of a competitive shortlist of four projects, the Fuji Kindergarten in the Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa was crowned the winner of the CAD $100,000 prize. The prize celebrates a single architectural project that is “transformative within its social context” and deemed exemplary of positively impactful and inclusive design. Li Xiaodong won the inaugural Moriyama Prize in 2014 for the Liyuan Library.

Designed by Tokyo-based Tezuka Architects, Fuji Kindergarten is a one-story, oval-shaped building with an enrollment of 600 children ages 2-6 — making it one of Japan's largest kindergartens. The jury expressed delight with the project, describing it as “a giant playhouse filled with joy and energy, scaled to a broad range of the human condition”.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

Tezuka Architects focused on designing an open, inclusive educational environment, in support of the Montessori education method, which encourages independence and freedom. “We want the children here to grow into people who do not exclude anything or anyone,” the architects said.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

The rooftop of the building encloses an inner courtyard and also serves as an open-air deck that the kids can run on in circles, with some kids even covering 6 kilometers a day, according to the designers. They can climb the pre-existing zelkova trees and then slide back down to the ground.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

The architectural spaces were designed at the scale of a child. “The ceiling heights are 2.1 metres creating a close relationship between the ground level and the rooftop. A slender balustrade encircles the roof with a maximum spacing of 110 mm--too small for a child's head, but big enough for feet to dangle through,” Tezuka Architects describes.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

Between April and November, the building's sliding doors are left open, and there's no distinction between indoors and outdoors. The interior has no walls between spaces.

Playful details include skylights and outdoor faucets for the children to wash up. On rainy days, collected rainwater flows through five gargoyles and into five large basins in the courtyard below, therefore creating waterfalls that the children can gather around.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

“The form creates inclusivity. There's no hierarchy, no segregation between better students and other students, between staff and pupils. That's a direct result of the form and the way the whole building opens up,” the jury commented.

“In contrast to much architecture, where artifice is employed in the creation of spectacle to mask a lack of substance, the Fuji Kindergarten demonstrates that architecture can profoundly enhance lives through understanding cultural needs of the day, and responding through intellectual exploration and manifestation through the craft of architecture,” they added.

Project details:

Fuji Kindergarten, Tokyo, Japan
Tezuka Architects
Date of occupany: 2007
Site: 4,791.6 square meters
Building: 1,419.2 square meters
Construction budget: CAD $4,093,611

RELATED NEWS Four projects shortlisted for 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize

Related

moriyama raic international prize ● raic ● royal architectural institute of canada ● competition ● kindergarten ● canada ● tokyo ● japan
Tezuka Architects
Tezuka Architects
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

Share

  • Follow

    0 Comments

  • Comment as :

“A giant oval playhouse filled with joy”: Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects wins 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize

New architecture and design competitions: The Architect's Chair, International Garden Festival, Rural Revitalization and Regeneration, and Innovative Furniture

Zaha Hadid Architects wins major China cultural district competition with large ‘feather’ roofs

Building Contemporary China examines three decades of architectural answers to the country's challenges

Lorcan O’Herlihy honored with the 2023 Maybeck Award by AIA California

Results of the Tiny Library 2023 Architecture Competition

The Urban Design Forum 2023 Forefront Fellows will explore design's relationship with social and political issues in New York City

The winning MICROHOME competition designs present innovative modular off-grid structures

Snøhetta among three winners of the 2023 Houen Fund Prize

Sign up for Bustler's Email Newsletters

Janet Echelman receives two international awards in recognition of her urban sculptures

New architecture and design competitions: Warming Huts, LIT Lighting Design Awards, LA+ EXOTIQUE, and Lyceum Fellowship Competition

Pratt reveals Kay WalkingStick, Kenneth Cobonpue, and Edward Mazria as Legends 2023 honorees

Materiality and social justice showcased in three public installations forming NYCxDESIGN’s 2023 Design Pavilion

Schmidt Hammer Lassen's rock formation-inspired design wins competition for new office building in Oslo

Innovative community centers shine in 2023 Concrete Masonry Student Competition

These are the 2023 Modernism in America Awards winners

Next page » Loading

“A giant oval playhouse filled with joy”: Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects wins 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize

By Justine Testado|

Wednesday, Sep 20, 2017

Share

Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects. Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

Related

moriyama raic international prize ● raic ● royal architectural institute of canada ● competition ● kindergarten ● canada ● tokyo ● japan
Tezuka Architects
Tezuka Architects
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

That's a wrap for the 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize! Out of a competitive shortlist of four projects, the Fuji Kindergarten in the Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa was crowned the winner of the CAD $100,000 prize. The prize celebrates a single architectural project that is “transformative within its social context” and deemed exemplary of positively impactful and inclusive design. Li Xiaodong won the inaugural Moriyama Prize in 2014 for the Liyuan Library.

Designed by Tokyo-based Tezuka Architects, Fuji Kindergarten is a one-story, oval-shaped building with an enrollment of 600 children ages 2-6 — making it one of Japan's largest kindergartens. The jury expressed delight with the project, describing it as “a giant playhouse filled with joy and energy, scaled to a broad range of the human condition”.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

Tezuka Architects focused on designing an open, inclusive educational environment, in support of the Montessori education method, which encourages independence and freedom. “We want the children here to grow into people who do not exclude anything or anyone,” the architects said.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

The rooftop of the building encloses an inner courtyard and also serves as an open-air deck that the kids can run on in circles, with some kids even covering 6 kilometers a day, according to the designers. They can climb the pre-existing zelkova trees and then slide back down to the ground.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

The architectural spaces were designed at the scale of a child. “The ceiling heights are 2.1 metres creating a close relationship between the ground level and the rooftop. A slender balustrade encircles the roof with a maximum spacing of 110 mm--too small for a child's head, but big enough for feet to dangle through,” Tezuka Architects describes.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

Between April and November, the building's sliding doors are left open, and there's no distinction between indoors and outdoors. The interior has no walls between spaces.

Playful details include skylights and outdoor faucets for the children to wash up. On rainy days, collected rainwater flows through five gargoyles and into five large basins in the courtyard below, therefore creating waterfalls that the children can gather around.

Photo: Katsuhisa Kida.

“The form creates inclusivity. There's no hierarchy, no segregation between better students and other students, between staff and pupils. That's a direct result of the form and the way the whole building opens up,” the jury commented.

“In contrast to much architecture, where artifice is employed in the creation of spectacle to mask a lack of substance, the Fuji Kindergarten demonstrates that architecture can profoundly enhance lives through understanding cultural needs of the day, and responding through intellectual exploration and manifestation through the craft of architecture,” they added.

Project details:

Fuji Kindergarten, Tokyo, Japan
Tezuka Architects
Date of occupany: 2007
Site: 4,791.6 square meters
Building: 1,419.2 square meters
Construction budget: CAD $4,093,611

RELATED NEWS Four projects shortlisted for 2017 Moriyama RAIC Prize

Share

  • Follow

    0 Comments

  • Comment as :

Archinect JobsArchinect Jobs

The Archinect Job Board attracts the world's top architectural design talents.

VIEW ALL JOBS POST A JOB

Intermediate Architect/Designer

DXA Studio

Intermediate Architect/Designer

New York, NY, US

Project Manager/Architect

Douglas Pancake Architects, Inc.

Project Manager/Architect

Irvine, CA, US

Project Manager: Design

DesignAgency

Project Manager: Design

Washington, DC, US

Architect / Architectural Designer

Jessie Carroll Architect

Architect / Architectural Designer

Portland, ME, US

Digital Fabrication Lab Specialist

University of Michigan

Digital Fabrication Lab Specialist

Ann Arbor, MI, US

Project Designer/Architect

INWORKSHOP ARCHITECTURE PLLC

Project Designer/Architect

Brooklyn, NY, US

Architect/Designer

Kovac Design Studio

Architect/Designer

Los Angeles, CA, US

Architect/Project Manager

Eigelberger Architecture + Design

Architect/Project Manager

Aspen, CO, US

Project Architect

bld architecture

Project Architect

Patchogue, NY, US

Architect

Standard Architects

Architect

Long Island City, NY, US

Next page » Loading