The Wonder Years Nursery School is Dubai Sports City\'s very own purpose-built Kindergarten nursery that ties the indoors and outdoors with playful spatiality.
Working on the client\'s brief to maximise the potential of the site, Delhi NCR-based architectural firm, r+d studio, envisioned the 12 classrooms strung around a common central space, facilitating learning beyond the physical boundaries of classrooms. “The central court is designed as the soul of the nursery, bringing the children together in a hub of programs, such as an art zone, a gymnasium, a role-play area and an open courtyard,” states the team.
The main concept behind the planning of the nursery was to design a space that blurs the indoors and outdoors with the learning environment such that the built environment stimulates and aids in development of the students and their cognitive skills. By creating multiple uses of the same spaces, the teachers and the students are able to define the complex relationship that transpires between \'space\' and its \'use\'.
This substantiates the integral philosophy by which the architects look at design - the phenomenology of space and its association to a variable program. Through the uses and events that transpire within the nursery, the design can and will evolve into a type of its own that is tangible and corporeal to uninhibited learning.
The Kindergarten nursery is a ground-only structure sitting amidst the concrete towers of Dubai Sports City. r+d studio has sensitively composed colour with the natural stones which were a mandatory requirement by the local authorities to create a building that stands out in its neighbourhood despite its scale. The use of colour, natural materials and light were key to realising the design environment in conjunction with the planning.
To achieve the right balance, the roof of the nursery has been punctured with sky-lights to allow natural light to penetrate to all parts of the school. The bold primary colours, accentuated by ambient natural light, were vital in creating the vision as perceived by the architects.
