BIBA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL RENOVATION
SINO AUSTRALIAN
EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER
Sino Australian Early Childhood Center is situated in Jiashan County, Jiaxing City, with a total floor area of 9,500 square metres. It comprises 24 classes catering to children aged three to five. Beyond standard classroom units, the facility features a range of communal spaces including a culinary arts studio, library, reading room, woodworking workshop, art studio, performing arts classroom, and indoor sports hall. This comprehensive offering provides children with a holistic, multi-sensory environment for learning and development.
LOCATION Jiashan, China
AREA 7027 m²
STATUS Completed
CLIENT Jiaxing Jingyu Real Estate Development Co., Ltd.
YEAR 2018
PROGRAMS Educational, Interior Design
The architectural design adopts a “chessboard grid” as its core concept, creating a rhythmic and engaging spatial sequence. Every three classrooms form a “small house” unit, organically linked through courtyards that allow indoor and outdoor spaces to permeate and resonate with one another. This layout not only enhances spatial layering and fluidity but also generates numerous semi-open, explorable corners for children, stimulating their desire to interact with nature and their peers.
In the interior design, we have preserved the advantage of high ceilings afforded by the building's pitched roof, transforming it into a dynamic interior form. The soaring, expansive ceiling not only enhances the sense of openness within the space but also provides both teachers and children with a “blank canvas” for free arrangement and creative expression. Each classroom can flexibly adjust wall decorations, activity zones, and furniture layouts according to teaching requirements and seasonal themes, truly realising the design's original intent: “space serving people”.
In terms of colour and material strategy, we employ the white and warm grey tones commonly found in Jiangnan water towns as our base palette, creating an overall atmosphere of tranquillity and warmth. Light brown woodgrain finishes are selected as the primary material, enhancing natural texture and approachability. Against this backdrop, vibrant blue-green and yellow-green hues are introduced as the main colour scheme, complemented by subtle accents of red and blue to heighten visual tension and intrigue. Regarding form language, we introduced diverse geometric elements—circles, diamonds, houses, triangles, and spheres—which, through repetition, combination, and transformation, establish a rich yet harmonious visual rhythm across walls, lighting, furniture, and soft furnishings. These forms possess strong decorative qualities while also stimulating children's divergent thinking and shape recognition abilities.
CHIEF DESIGNER
Xiaoyi Ma
DESIGN TEAM
Pengfei Chen, Chaoyi Meng, Yue Zhao, Yue Liu, Jiajia Wang, Yanting Zhu, Xuejiao Zhou
CREDITS
Renjie Xia (Photographer)