Nos Pilifs Competition (2022)
Special Schoolas Conceptual Designer and Copywriter/Editor @B612architects
Team
Li Mei Ti Sien
Olivier Mattieu
Ioanna Moysidou
Michael Liberato
Francesco Marsano
Bruxelles, Belgium
The architectural concept is based on simple shapes to create a combination of readable volumes housing the different functional parts of the school and the CRA. A generous central oval defining the main circulation, connects them and creates a gathering place. A warm openwork skin/moucharabieh of wood envelops the entire volume. Delimitation of the outdoor space, it is both a protection against the sun and a screen to reduce sensory overload that could disturb children.
The proposed configuration creates a geometry that is both dynamic and intimate, which encompasses the exterior inside the building. It offers security and calm to children living in the autism spectrum and to school staff through the provision of spaces that transit from the community to privacy. The main idea of the project is to bring successive degrees of interiority, offering children, their families and educational workers a clear sequence of readable spaces, spatial support necessary for a gradual exterior-interior transition that brings them by degree from a noisier peripheral space to intimate and silent rooms. Thus, the project includes distinct areas, responding to different degrees of interiority and distress.
A mixed, flexible area allows variations between noise and calm. It houses the classes, reception areas (transition to classes) and the library. The organization of classes meets the needs of both professionals and children. Small spaces are arranged there. They offer, as well as individual gardens, soothing areas, places dedicated to concentration during moments of distress. The spaces allocated to administration and therapy are quiet areas. Children access it only under the supervision of adults. In the right wing of the building, in connection with the central courtyard, a stimulating area receives noisier and more active activities, combining games and recreation.
The external and inner curves express the welcome in a recognizable, strong, but comforting form - the school as a safe and comfortable place. The main facade embraces children and families, simultaneously hosting an educational and community building. Otherness is an objective. Meeting and embracing diversity, designing taking into account the complexities of the autistic spectrum, opens up creative possibilities for respect and adaptability to different needs. This approach has allowed us to bring into the project a wide variety of spatial and architectural qualities, both in terms of light, color, texture and dimensions and materials while reducing sensory overload, allowing calm, reduced and varied scales and soothing places.