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Some parts of this article have been translated using google’s translation engine. we understand the quality of this translation is not excellent and we are working to replace these with high quality human translations., introduction, the ceiling, sliding panels, no divisions.

Tezuka Architects

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Tokyo kindergarten by Tezuka Architects lets children run free on the roof

The oval-shaped roof deck of this playful Tokyo  kindergarten  allows children to play and run endless laps around it – a feature that has just won it the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize.

Completed by  Tezuka Architects  10 years ago, Fuji Kindergarten is located in the Tachikawa suburb of the city. It accommodates 600 children aged between two and six.

The school follows the Montessori Method, an educational approach where children are given freedom to range around the classroom and learn via discovery.

Rather than impose physical boundaries on the children, Tokyo-based architect Takaharu Tezuka designed the kindergarten as a continuous space that allows for unfettered learning and play.

He 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 recognises a work of architecture considered "transformative within its societal context".

There is no play equipment installed, instead the architecture itself functions as a giant playground. Children are allowed to move about freely, fall down and get wet within a safe environment.

"Because the building is a ring they are looking at each other, Tezuka told Dezeen. "There is no sense of a middle. The children learn to be fair to everybody, they learn how to be a part of a nice group."

The roof area doubles as a playground and a running track, giving the students an endless ring to chase each other around. The deck was built around the existing zelkova trees, with nets placed around the base to allow for easy climbing.

When the children first started interacting the building it was an emotional moment.

"It was simple, they just started running, said Tezuka. "It was beyond our expectations. I was sitting with the principal and everyone had tears. It was amazing, an instant reaction."

Handrails around the edge act as a safety barrier and allow the inner courtyard to be turned into an arena. The railings are close enough together that children won't get their heads stuck, but allow them to sit with their legs dangling through.

The roof height is only 2.1 metres tall, allowing a close connection between the levels. Children can scramble up a bank and climb a set of stairs to reach a slide from the deck back to the ground.

Skylights are built into the deck, letting natural light into the classrooms below and providing the children with a porthole to peek at their classmates through. Five gargoyles channel rainwater into water butts, creating impromptu waterfalls for students to play in during wet weather.

At ground level, sliding doors allow the classrooms to be open to the elements during good weather. Instead of dividing walls, the architects created child-sized boxes made from light wood with rounded edges that can be stacked to create shelves and display areas.

Tezuka believes standard classroom design is unnatural and counter productive to a positive learning environment. The free plan design encourages independence and collaboration, without forcing children to sit still and silent for long periods of time.

By leaving the classrooms open, the sound of 600 children creates the level of white noise found in natural environments. Tezuka got the idea when he met the composer and molecular biologist Tsutomu Ohashi while on holiday in Bali.

Listening back to a recording of an Indonesian music performance Ohashi invited him to, he realised the sound was obscured by the noise of the jungle he had been able to unconsciously filter whilst watching the show.

"Just as a fish cannot live in purified water, children cannot live in a clean, quiet and controlled environment," he said.

Photography is by Katsuhisa Kida.

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Fuji Kindergarten

A kindergarten in the shape of a oval with a perimeter of 183m, made for 500 children. It is conceived as a single village. The interior is an integrated space softly partitioned with furniture. Projecting through the roof deck are three preserved zelkova trees 25m in height.

total floor area : 1,304.01m² constructor : Takenaka Corporation completion : 2007

Photographer : Katsuhisa Kida / FOTOTECA

Photographer : Tezuka Architects

Sketch : Tezuka Architects

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Fuji Kindergarten by Tezuka Architects

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Tezuka Architects' Fuji Kindergarten Wins 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize

• Written by Patrick Lynch
• Published on September 20, 2017

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has announced Tezuka Architects ’ Fuji Kindergarten in Tokyo as the winner of the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize . Established by Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama and the RAIC in 2014, the $100,000 prize is awarded every two years to recognize a single work of architecture from around the globe “that is judged to be transformative within its societal context and promotes the values of social justice, equality, and inclusiveness.”

"I feel now there is someone who understands this project well. I think it's quite a unique prize because it's about contributing to society,” commented Takaharu Tezuka. "It looks like a simple structure. But it's a layering of many ideas combined."

Fuji Kindergarten was selected from a four-strong shortlist including BIG’s 8 House in Copenhagen; the Melbourne School of Design by John Wardle Architects and NADAAA; and the Village Architect, Shobac Campus by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. The inaugural prize was won by Li Xiaodong for his design of the Liyuan Library, located in a small village outside Beijing .

“This is a prize that will continue to acknowledge the important work of transformative architecture worldwide and its designers,” commented Raymond Moriyama. “No matter the scale or size of the building, the Prize provides an opportunity to recognize design qualities which make a positive contribution. Society is evolving, we hope, toward more equality and social justice. Architects can provide leadership by creating inspiring buildings in service to a community.”

Completed in 2007 in Tokyo, Japan, the Fuji Kindergarten is a single-story, oval-shaped building that encourages children to play and interact by breaking down the physical barriers found in the typical early childhood educational architecture. Large sliding glazed doors lining the interior of the ring are opened up for a majority of the year, allowing children to freely pass between indoor and outdoor areas, encouraging independence and socialization. An accessible roof becomes the main play space for the school, giving students an endless path to run, jump and play.

All these design decisions have led to a learning environment that improves learning ability, calmness and focus, even in children with behavioral disorders.

“What we want to teach through this building are values of human society that are unchanging, even across eras,” said Tezuka Architects in their submission statement. “We want the children raised here to grow into people who do not exclude anything or anyone. The key to Fuji Kindergarten was to design spaces as very open environments, filled with background noise. When the boundary disappears, the constraints disappear. Children need to be treated as a part of the natural environment.”

“What perhaps sets the Fuji Kindergarten apart is the sheer joy that is palpable in this architecture,” said Barry Johns, FRAIC, Jury Chair and a Trustee of the RAIC Foundation. “It is one of those rare buildings—comprised of a geometric plan, a single section, a roof, and a tree—that in their utter simplicity and unfettered logic magically transcend the normal experience of learning. This winning project should give all architects around the world reason for great optimism that humanity benefits enormously from the creation of such a deeply simple and yet sophisticated architecture of unquestionable redeeming value.”

In addition to the $100,000 grand prize, three $5,000 scholarships were awarded to three architecture students: University of Waterloo student (and ArchDaily intern) Osman Bari ; Alykhan Neky of Ryerson University; and Tanya Southcott, McGill University. Winners were selected based on an illustrated 1,000-word essay on the following topic: Please describe the moment—the circumstances, the nature of the event—when you decided to become an architect, or when you knew that your decision to become an architect was the right one.

“The student scholarships are equally important to raise the aspirations of up-and-coming architects,” said Moriyama. “I congratulate the three winners and wish them well in their pursuit of architecture as a worthy profession.”

Learn more about the 2017 Moriyama RAIC International Prize here .

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手冢建筑的‘富士幼儿园’斩获2017 Moriyama RAIC国际建筑奖

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Takaharu tezuka’s fuji kindergarten forms continuous space for children without extra equipment, japan architecture news - oct 09, 2017 - 17:06   20858 views.

Japanese architect Takaharu Tezuka designed a circle-shaped kindergarden that the children could keep running, never knowing when to stop. The emblematic structure allows children free and continuous space to play on its roof, inner garden and in the interior without needed any extra play equipment.

Named Fuji Kindergarten, Takaharu Tezuka's firm Tezuka Architects was also named as the winner of this year's Moriyama RAIC International Prize by The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada ( RAIC ) - the project was praised for its "rareness" in complete set of geometry and "utter simplicity and unfettered logic magically transcend the normal experience of learning."

Fuji Kindergarten, located in Tokyo, Japan and opened in 2007, is a large, one-story, oval-shaped kindergarten, well known to accommodate over 600 children freely running around the oval-shaped roof. All of architectural spaces were designed to be at the scale of a child, so there is an extremely close relationship between the floor level and rooftop level. 

Three pre-existing Zelkova trees shoot through the architecture and are splendid climbing points for children on the roof. There is not a single piece of play equipment on the roof. The rooftop itself becomes the play equipment. Even children who don’t usually run will most certainly race around this roof. 

"Children love running in circles. When we brought our kids to the original kindergarten site, they kept making circles around the chairs. It was as if they had an instinctive need to do this, like a puppy that tries to bite its own tail by running in circles. So we designed Fuji Kindergarten to also be in the form of a circle so that the children could keep running, never knowing when to stop," said Takaharu Tezuka. 

"The principal also used to make rounds through each of the buildings, even though the existing kindergarten was not connected in a loop. We liked that situation so we made Fuji Kindergarten into a circular shape for him, so that he too never knows when to stop!," added the architect.

The key to Fuji Kindergarten is spaces being open environments. Between April and November, the sliding doors are completely open. The distinction between where outside stops and inside starts doesn’t apply. There are no walls between spaces and therefore no boundaries. There are only boxes that are used as furniture to indicate areas.

The principal believes that when you place children in a cage they will try to establish a social hierarchy, and the outcasts get segregated; but when you have no boundaries, there is no need to create such hierarchies.

"The space by Tezuka Architects took a new look at kindergartens," said the jury. "There is no hierarchy to the place; the teachers and the kids all have an equal status architecturally, which is a direct result of the form and the way the whole building opens up. It is an egalitarian, comfortable, and physically stimulating place for children."

"The Fuji Kindergarten demonstrates that architecture can profoundly enhance lives through understanding the cultural needs of the day, and responding through intellectual exploration and manifestation through the craft of architecture. This is an extraordinarily positive place—a giant playhouse filled with joy and energy, scaled to a broad range of the human condition," the jury noted.

"Our scheme for Fuji Kindergarten is the "end of an era". Modern conveniences have deprived children of basic sensation, and the treasures once found in this era have now been abandoned. What we want to teach through this building is “common sense”. Common sense comprises those values of human society that are unchanging, even across eras," said Tezuka Architects.

"We want the children raised here to grow into people who do not exclude anything or anyone. We think Fuji Kindergarten will be unchanged even after fifty years have passed," the architects added.

Tezuka Architects’ Fuji Kindergarten in Tokyo, Japan, was selected by the seven-member jury following site visits to each of the four shortlisted projects. In addition to the Fuji Kindergarten, the finalists include 8 House in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Bjarke Ingels Group; the Melbourne School of Design in Melbourne, Australia, by John Wardle Architects and NADAAA; and the Shobac Campus in Nova Scotia, Canada, by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. The Prize received submissions from 17 countries across six continents.

Raymond Moriyama, FRAIC, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC), and the RAIC Foundation created the Moriyama RAIC International Prize in 2014 to raise the international stature of the RAIC and the Canadian architectural profession, and to encourage Canadian architects to aspire to international excellence.

In 2014, Li Xiaodong was announced as the first Moriyama RAIC International Prize winner with the Liyuan Library , opened in 2012 in the village of Jiaojiehe, China. 

All images © Katsuhisa Kida > via Tezuka Architects / RAIC

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• Tezuka Architects

Fuji Kindergarten

Tachikawa near Tokyo, Japan

Project by Tezuka Architects Tokyo, Japan

Photographer: Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA

Photographer: Tezuka Architects

A kindergarten in the shape of a oval with a perimeter of 183m, made for 500 children. It is conceived as a single village. The interior is an integrated space softly partitioned with furniture. Projecting through the roof deck are three preserved zelkova trees 25m in height. total floor area:1304.01m2 constructor:Takenaka Corporation

Architects: Tezuka Architects, MASAHIRO IKEDA co.,ltd Creative Director: Kashiwa Sato Lighting Designer: Masahide Kakudate/Lighting Architect&Associates

/en/project/tezuka-architects-fuji-kindergarten/5100019

Inside the world’s best kindergarten

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At Fuji Kindergarten outside Tokyo, kids make the most of a magical environment designed just for them. The roof of their oval-shaped school, designed by Tokyo-based firm Tezuka Architects, is an endless playground, and trees grow right through classrooms.

So how do you build to let children be children? Says Takaharu Tezuka (TED Talk: The best kindergarten you’ve ever seen ): Think like a kid. He was inspired by his own daughter and son, now twelve and nine, who he says “have become a part of his body.” As they grew up, their habits and desires became his, and in designing his school with his wife, Yui, he only needed to channel them to know what to build. Explore the school and dive into Daddy and Mommy Tezuka’s kid-centered design thinking.

The playground lets kids run forever

“We designed the school as a circle, with a kind of endless circulation. When we started, I had no preconceived notions. Studying other kindergartens was like looking in the rearview mirror of a car: Even if you look very closely, you can’t see anything in front.”

Kids can slide to class

“We put in a small mound of dirt at the bottom of the stairs leading from the roof — this was a trick to make the stairs shorter. But then the children started taking away the dirt to make mud bowls — 6oo kids take mud away, and the mound started to disappear! The school had to keep asking the construction company to put mud back. (As the soil got harder, the kids stopped taking it home.) See the slide? I knew kids love to slide, but I actually wasn’t very keen on putting it in, because it tells children what they should and shouldn’t do. Without tools, the kids have to think for themselves and create games. But in the end we kept it: We needed a fire escape.”

Safety drills are super cute

“Japan gets ten percent of the world’s big earthquakes, so children have these earthquake drills. They take these cotton hats from under the table to protect their heads in case something falls. It’s a very Japanese thing.”

Being a non-human animal is encouraged

“Japanese building code says you have to have a vertical handrail with bars 100 millimeters apart so the kids can’t put their heads through. But: They can put their legs in, and kids love to swing their legs. Chimpanzees do the exact same thing — it’s a kind of instinct. And the way they do that is so cute.”

Anything can be a toy

“We had to build around the trees already there on the land. It wasn’t easy — we couldn’t cut the roots, which spread as wide as the tree crowns. We added these safety nets so the students wouldn’t fall through the holes around the trees. But I know kids, and they love to play with nets. Whenever they see a hammock, they want to jump into it, to shake it. These were really just an excuse for me to give the kids another way to play.”

Skylights for peekaboo

“The kids love to look through the skylights from the roof. ‘Where’s my friend?’ ‘What’s going on underneath in class?’ And when you look down, you always see kids looking up from below. Here, distraction is supposed to happen. There are no walls between classrooms, so noise floats freely from one class to the other, and from outside to inside. We consider noise very important. When you put children in a quiet box, some of them get really nervous.”

A chair can be a train

“Every month at Fuji the teachers and kids rearrange the classroom furniture. This little boy and girl were supposed to help make a new configuration, but they’re useless! They’re playing train instead. We filled the school with about 600 of these boxes, which are made from this very light wood known as kiri wood. It won’t hurt the kids if they hit their heads on the corner.”

A place for water-cooler talk

“These days Japanese kids only talk to computers. I hate it. I thought, if we put a well in each classroom, they’ll be forced to talk to each other. There’s a phrase in Japanese, ido bata kaigi , which means, ‘conference around the well.’ Women used to meet and exchange information when they went to get water. I wanted the children to do the same.”

Kids can also climb to class

“In 2011, we built an annex to the school with two more classrooms and some playing areas. We called it ‘Ring around the Tree,’ because when the architect Peter Cook visited he said it reminded him of the song ‘Ring Around the Rosie.’ I thought the tree should be more important than the building, so I made the building as light as possible. In this school, children are encouraged to climb trees. If a kid is strong enough, they can reach the upper level without using the stairs. Other schools might not allow this, but the principal here believes children know their own limits. They stop when they have to stop.”

Photos courtesy of Tezuka Architects. Photo of the “Ring Around the Tree” building by Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA.

About the author

Thu-Huong Ha is a freelance writer. Previously she was the books and culture reporter for Quartz and the context editor at TED. Her writing has also appeared on Slate and in The New York Times Book Review. Her debut novel, Hail Caesar, was published in 2007 by PUSH, a YA imprint of Scholastic, and was named an NYPL Book for the Teen Age. Follow her at twitter.com/thu

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Ring Around a Tree, Fuji Kindergarten, Japan

Ring Around a Tree Building, Fuji Kindergarten, Tezuka Architects Japan, Japanese Nursery School

Ring Around a Tree, Japan : Fuji Kindergarten

page updated 6 Nov 2016 with new photos ; page updated 25 Aug 2014

Ring Around a Tree Kindergarten

Photographs: Katsuhisa Kida

Ring Around a Tree

The annex to Fuji Kindergarten contains English classrooms and a school bus waiting area. A twisting zelkova tree dominates the site and while half of the building is exterior space, the footprint does not define the boundary between outside and in.

Each May, greenery engulfs the building. The oval-shaped plan traces the zelkova’s broad canopy making the columns and floor seem to vanish in the shimmering shadows. Existing branches take precedence and penetrate the building, and grown-ups have to crawl when ascending the stairs to the roof.

While the main building is elliptical, lacking a precise center, the annex has a clear focal point. Its original design drew inspiration from the legend of Buddha preaching under a linden tree, but the space was not used exactly as we had envisioned. Despite the openness of the English classroom, the teacher and children prefer to squeeze into tight corners and niches between floor plates. The five meter-tall building has seven levels, with clearances ranging from 600mm to 1500mm. This idea came from the school’s vice principal who requested “a classroom without furniture.” When we showed our son and daughter, they touched the ceiling with their hands, smiling. The principal, Mr. Kato, said that for children, the ceiling is like the sky – they cannot touch it. When the sky is lowered to their level, it transports them into the world of giant adults. If you visit the school on a nice day, you’ll find giggling kindergartners wedged into spaces less than 60 centimeters high.

Typically ceilings are taller than head height and railings secure areas where someone could fall. Here, however, the ceiling is lower than the height of a child, and there are many steps without guardrails. Before we opened the school to the kindergartners, I brought my own children here to play. Just as we had expected, there were a few small bumps and bruises, but certainly nothing serious.

What we could not ignore was when my children began climbing over the handrail and out onto the branches of the tree, this was dangerous. We solved this issue by tying ropes around certain areas. For the principal, they are a safety measure, but for us the ropes capture a positive aspect of the design. If we had begun by considering safety as our primary option, the building would never have been realized in its current form. While even a 50cm height can be hazardous for children, learning about these dangers and gaining control of one’s surroundings are important parts of a child’s education at Fuji Kindergarten.

Minimal Structure

The building’s structure is extremely thin. This was important because with rooms less than one meter high, it was conceivable that the structure could be larger than the spaces themselves. The floors are reinforced with 9mm steel ribs and most of the columns are smaller than 30mm square, almost furniture-like dimensions. At this size, the structure is even thinner than the tree branches. The ribs under the roof look like the veins of a leaf, but they were not intended to mimic the tree. Instead the form is a natural result of a rational structural analysis. The low floor-to-floor heights, allow the columns a larger slenderness ratio.

We named the project “Ring Around a Tree,” a name suggested by Peter Cook who, upon visiting the site, recalled the English children’s song “Ring Around the Rosie.”

Ring Around a Tree Fuji Kindergarten – Building Information

Architects: Tezuka Architects Structure Engineer: OHNO JAPAN Co., Ltd/OHNO HIROFUMI Photographs: Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA Lighting Designer: Masahide Kakudate/Lighting Architect&Associates

CEILING HEIGHTS (VARIES): 1ST FLOOR 2104mm/2ND FLOOR 2104mm TOTAL HEIGHTS (VARIES): 5164mm

FLOORS: 2 LEVELS Master planning: Apr – Aug 2010 Construction: Sep 2010 – Mar 2011

Owner: Montessori School Fuji Kindergarten

Structure Engineer: OHNO JAPAN Co., Ltd/OHNO HIROFUMI Hirofumi Ohno, Seiji Ohkawa

Photographer: Katsuhisa Kida/FOTOTECA

The Roof House – further information on Fuji Kindergarten

Location: Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan , East Asia

Japan Architecture Designs

Japanese Architecture

Japanese School Buildings – Selection

Otonoha School , Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan Design: Tetsuya Matsui, UZU Otonoha School Japan

Utsukushigaoka Elementary School

Fuji Kindergarten

Tezuka Takaharu and Yui Tezuka, the founders of Fuji Montessori School, visited Casa Mila, a building in Spain designed by Antoni Gaudí. On this roof full of chimneys and irregular windows, children were running around and having fun, even though it was not an official playground. 

A place to experiment 

According to them, traditional play equipment includes tools designed by adults to give children ways to play. Playgrounds are provided, and the ways to play are limited. Yet children are experts at finding their own games. The founders believe that we overprotect children with artificially created environments, they cannot grow properly, and experience cannot be learned. Their principle: “Don’t spoil children too much or they will grow up the wrong way. Because the one who doesn’t break a bone now, may have a more serious injury once he or she grows up.”   

This kindergarten was designed as a large oval building where all architectural spaces are at child height. The three existing trees run through the architecture. The roof is sloping and running becomes fun. Even children who don’t normally run race around the roof. It is said that some children run 30 laps in the morning, which is 5,500 meters, an unusual distance for young children. 

The founders aim to enable children from different and diverse backgrounds to enrol in this kindergarten. 

Do you want to know more about this school model? 

https://fujikids.jp/   

Project began: 01/02/2005 

Leading organisation: Montessori School Fuji Kindergarten 

The country where the team is based: Japan 

Covered Countries: Japan 

Theme: Education for Sustainable Development 

Sub-themes: Cultural diversity, Knowledge sharing, Sustainable lifestyles 

Project needs

• Partnerships development 
• Press relations 

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Fuji kindergarten.

How can we design to encourage play, comfort & well-being?

To remove boundaries between the indoors and outdoors Fuji kindergarten has turned its school roof into a circular, endless playground and put nature at the forefront of its teaching with trees growing right through the middle of the classrooms.

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED 2020

HundrED 2018

About the innovation

Physical elements of a school environment can have discernible effects on teachers and learners. In particular, inadequate temperature control, lighting, air quality and acoustics can have cause issues with concentration, mood, well-being, attendance and, ultimately, attainment.

Beautiful and thoughtfully designed spaces establish a positive reaction and relationship between children and school early on, this could have dramatic effects on learning abilities and achievements later on in their career. We need to constantly strive to provide children with the best start in life and design can be a part of this process.

The Fuji Kindergarten was built with children at the heart of its design. When the kindergarten outgrew their old premises, the Principal wanted to recreate a building where design could be a key part of the children's education - he was inspired to work with high class architects to create a school that would inspire children every day. There are many considered elements to this school's design.

The classrooms in the building have sliding doors that can be kept open for at least two thirds of the year. There are no walls between classrooms, so noise floats freely from one class to the other, from outside to inside. This can be very important as many children get nervous when they're expected to be in a quiet box!

To help instigate face-to-face communication, something key to encourage in an increasingly digitalized world, water wells have been installed, encouraged to be used as informal meeting places to chat.

One of this kindergarten's most unusual features is that it has been designed as a circle, with an endless circular roof that allows the kids to run forever! With skylights on the roof children can express their inquisitive sides, looking up and down to see what their friends are up to.

There is also nature everywhere. Trees with giant safety nets, to stop kids falling through, are used as toys for them to climb, jump and shake.They can even climb to class with a giant tree in the middle of the school used to clamber to the next level.

Every month at Fuji the teachers and kids rearrange the classroom furniture. They filled the school with around 600 very light wood boxes so they can play/rearrange them to their heart's’ content, and are often used as pretend trains!

Due to it's wonderful usability Fuji Kindergarten was named by the OECD as the most outstanding educational facility in the world in 2011.

Impact & scalability

The innovation for the Tezuka architects is that they are doing what they feel they should do. This building is innovative in that it's custom built school designed to optimise wellbeing.

The building has impact on the children in many ways. There are no social outcasts & autistic children are able to integrate with other children and rarely display signs of their typical symptoms. In terms of physical exercise, their research study showed that six times more games were played on the Fuji Kindergarten Roof compare to a typical kindergarten and the average child in Fuji Kindergarten ran about three miles daily - 8 times more than a normal kindergarten!

The design of Fuji Kindergarten can be used to inspire future schools looking to enhance their learning environments so that they are best suited for their children.

Implementation steps

When looking at an architectural redesign or improving the learning environment look for ways tocreate more open spaces and remove boundaries. This could be done with opening doors or using different furniture.

At Fuji, for example, between April and November, the sliding doors are completely open. The distinction between where outside stops and where inside starts doesn’t apply. There are no walls between spaces, and therefore no boundaries.

There are also only boxes, used as furniture to indicate areas. The principal believes that when you place children in a cage they will try to establish a social hierarchy, and the outcasts get segregated; but when you have no boundaries, there is no need to create such hierarchies.

In every environment there are ways to consider how the noise in spaces from classroom level, to hallways, from dining halls to play areas affect the learners and staff within it.

At Fuji, they acceptmore than 30 children affected by autism.

Some of the children have had a tough time in other kindergartens but since they have beentransferred to Fuji Kindergarten theybehaved little to nodifferently to other children.

Based on research this seems to relate tobackground noise. In an experiment wherewhite noise, at a frequency of more than 20 kilohertz is provided, the children no longer show symptoms. This is the kind of background noise that happens naturally at Fuji Kindergarten.

Every childcare room in Fuji Kindergarten is filled with background noise. While one class is learning basic mathematics, another class is playing piano nearby. The children are then selecting information from this noise. It is natural to be exposed to high frequency background noise.

With open doors and not asking for silence this can be a way to improve noise volume in a school.

Play and exercise are vital parts in theday for children. When considering design find ways to incorporate the element of circles into your play spaces.

When the Tezuka Architects brought their kids to the original kindergarten site, they kept making circles around the chairs. They felt like it was as if they had an instinctive need to do this, like a puppy trying to bite its own tail by running in circles.

After it was noted that children love running in circles this is what Fuji Kindergarten became -a large, one-story, oval-shaped kindergarten, well known to accommodate over 600 children freely running around the oval-shaped roof.

Carry this design inspiration to your building sothat the children could keep running, never knowing when to stop!

It might even benefit your staff... The principal at Fuji also used to make rounds through each of the buildings, even though the existing kindergarten was not connected in a loop so the Kindergarten is also a circular shape for him, so that he too never knows when to stop!

Find ways to incorporate nature into the everyday.

At Fuji, for example, three pre-existing Zelkova trees shoot through the architecture and are splendid climbing points for children on the roof.

Could you bring in more succulents, plants and trees to both the indoors and outdoors of your environment?

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Geometric features of the roof of the Fuji Kindergarten designed by Takaharu Tezuka: (a) The geometric features of the roof consist of two simple ellipses, and (b) a series of mock-up models created by the architect [9].

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