LINCOLN NEW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Asociación Escuelas Lincoln, La Lucila, Vicente López.
Argentina. 2023.
Private Competition
1st Prize
A. CONCEPT
About Architecture and Education
It has been deeply written about the environment where the learning process takes place, as well as about learning itself. From learning around nature, as Louis Kahn suggested, to the contemporary vision of learning where experience is over repetition.
Talks around learning have led to huge architecture projects around the topic, Montessori Schools, for instance. We risk to say those buildings have been arms to the built of crucial memories, which may not have been as deep in less thought structures.
Based on us being optimistic about Architecture being a tool for learning, we are enthusiast to present a new building structure for Elementary School. We think and thought of it not only as a construction itself but as a favorable environment for students to acknowledge learning as a memorable experience, worth living around our draft.
Quick and costly changes
Our project aims to give worthy response to the main topics surrounding the Master Plan. Those are, we claim, education, sustainability and coexistence, aiming to pay special attention to what Architecture can do to help grow those.
Since the early years of the XX century, educational theories have continued to dramatically change their proposals. Architecture, a key step on the chain, seems to always be way behind what’s expected. It is then suggested to draft structures thought out of resilience, taking both sustainability and economics into account.
Resilience
Our proposal is enlightened by Steward Brand’s ideas. He suggests buildings are thought as structures capable of changing according to behavior and time. Consequently, land and structure may stay still forever. However, its fixture and fittings may change easily as its usage does.
The following graphic may make it clearer on how the new ES could –and can – be easily reshaped as needed and expected, without losing its quality.
B. DESCRIPTION
The Master Plan
We understand and agree with the fact that first steps in the Master Plan’s way are aimed to refine its proposals from a cooperative view. That being said, we suggest thinking the Campus as a whole, in order to take advantage from its structure and environment. It is recommended to start from the entrance section in Andres Ferreyra and link that, on a West-East axis, with the lower section of the field crossing the parking lots and field house. It is also suggested to keep the belvedere from the actual building, which would itself give place to the South-North pedestrian axis of the Campus.
The actual gallery would also not be demolished, keeping an enclosed pedestrian zone, next to a tree lined square that works as buffer between the main office next to the auditorium and the Mansion, and the new ES playground.
Partial demolitions
Our draft intends to keep two areas of the building as we understand those could be useful for the new scheme. On the one hand, the Ferreyra entrance helps create the façade as well as giving place to a roofed way down the new ES. On the other hand, it is intended to avoid demolishing the tower of the actual building that contains stairs and elevators, as well as a first storey line. This last, will conveniently be changed to a belvedere for the new Middle School playground.
Site Implantation
The main entrance opening for the South-North axis is wide as it looks to the Mansion. At the other end, the opening is smaller and looks at the neighborhood.
Standing at the main area (hall, patio, forecourt, multi-purpose room), you are able to access the mostly used rooms for students: classrooms and special classrooms, which were thought to get an outdoor view, especially the river and natural reserve. To the West and closest to the road, we decided to locate all support, administration and services areas, which would mostly be used by the teaching staff.
Functioning
The building itself would consist of three storeys with a shared main central area with natural light. This as to help regulate climate conditions inside the building. This area connects to each and every multi-purpose room in each floor that you can access through a ramp, which also helps creative a childlike environment.
The ground floor would include both indoor and outdoor classrooms, as well as common areas for the first three grades. There, you would also find the administration area aiming the first contact with the public. There would also be access to the square mentioned before. This goes upwards through the three floors, giving place also to the multi-purpose rooms, an indoor patio and the outdoor playrooms. All these would create the first view as you enter the building.
The second floor includes classrooms from 2nd to 5th grade, including its common areas. These last are thought to be built in glassed terraces with view to the river. The multi-purpose room, in this floor, is located with a street view, meaning it’s right up the main entrance on the first floor.
Finally, the third floor would also include some special classrooms which are thought to be indoors, giving space to the whole rest of the floor being outdoors such as terraces and patios expanding those indoor rooms.
Outdoor Classrooms
Each and every classroom is drafted to have access to the outdoors, giving the chance for teachers to do so outside. All of them would include a terrace section facing the façade. Only K4, K5 and 1st grade, which are downstairs, are thought to also have an indoor garden. Special classrooms are thought with a specific terrace each.
