Renovation of Xuefu Middle School / Multi-Architecture

The colonnade acts as a boundary: The campus spans 151m north to south and 141m east to west, with an E-shaped teaching building to the west. After years of management by the school authority, the teaching area has developed a cozy and natural environment. In this layout, the distance between the teaching building and the playground is crucial for the dynamic and static transition between the physical education classes and the teaching area. I have always been imaginative about the creativity of students in such a space. It was an antique partition wall and people from the teaching area to the playground were completely exposed to the sun. Replacing this dividing wall with a colony can: 1. provide shelter near the running range. 2. use the top surface of the column as a stand. 3. connecting the evacuation stairs of the teaching buildings, making a third space between the teaching area and the playground in terms of traffic. 4. connect the courtyard of the E-shaped teaching building or face the playground through the column.

Enclosure – New playground: The former track is crowded: several classes engage in various activities on the track together, and long-distance runners skilfully avoid them. It basically lies in the failure to spread different activities effectively in the layout of the playground. The plot is barely adequate for a 300m track, leaving insufficient buffer space, let alone expecting space for equipment classes and heats along the outer perimeter of the track. Reducing the range from 300m to 250m will provide a lot of space on the north and south sides, changing the playground from the edge ie. enclosure to the area enclosed by other functional areas. The essence of enclosure is to make the playground a center, apart from the rest outside the teaching building.

Enclosure – Density adjustment: The school building, together with the playground, was built in 2002 to accommodate 26 classes, but now more than 50 classes must be there after 20 years. This results in a lack of space for specialist classrooms. Secondary spaces for the physical education office, equipment room, and logistics and groceries are scattered around. The playground enclosure spreads the areas above from the teaching area to the playground – service rooms on the south side (two floors: equipment, restroom, changing rooms, PE staff lounge, logistics and groceries) and classrooms specialized in the north. side (two floors).

Shelter – Southern canopy and large canopy: The physical sensations of the sun or intense rainstorms during southern physical education classes have always been a constant feature of the initial site survey with the school authorities. Unfortunately, the playgrounds in southern China have no characteristics, compared to the northern ones. Shelter, first enclosure and then shelter – In the case of buildings on the north and south side, as many transition spaces as possible should be created, together with colonies, to create a perimeter of covered activity areas of different heights around the playground composition. In organizing them, a pioneering plan is generally in place with the school authorities – a huge shelter is set up in the middle of the playground, covering two basketball courts, providing the school with valuable shelter for meetings. I am grateful for the interest of the school authorities in this matter. Since then, the percentage of transfer space in Xuefu playground has reached 20%.

All of the above lead to a new type of playground so that the alternative function of the playground is now recognized and modeled: an outdoor space within a high-density campus. After being enclosed and sheltered, he will engage in community life within the campus.