The Jiangsu Beisha Kindergarten in China has been conceived as a miniature village, with a cluster of house-like structures clustered around a square and connected via winding paths and raised walkways.
Beijing and Frankfurt-based practice Crossboundaries has designed the kindergarten, in the village of Beisha in China's Funing County, as part of a local government initiative to alleviate a shortage of preschool education in rural areas.

The rural kindergarten is designed to function look like and function as a miniature village.
"Finding the appropriate scale for the project was a crucial starting point of this design," explained Crossboundaries.
"The Beisha Kindergarten functions as a smaller, modified version of a village with the scale giving children a sense of familiarity, introducing novelty and engaging curiosity."
Designed as an alternative to the homogenous, repetitive nature of many school buildings in more urban areas, here classroom are placed within a mix of individual one and two-storey blocks or "houses".  Larger separate blocks contain for office, canteen and infirmary spaces.
"A typical school form, enclosed by prismatic volumes and a repetitive facade that blocks off the surrounding and limits the view with its protective, city logic would be a foreign object in this setting," said the architecture studio.

A combination of local recycled brick and white plaster were used to give each of these blocks a subtly...