Designers Paul Mok and Qia Jiayu have built a primary school in rural Deqing, China, which features plenty of outdoor space including parks, playgrounds and an amphitheatre.
Mok and Jiayu designed Erdu Primary School in Zhejiang province together with the Zhejiang University of Technology Engineering Design Group.
A concrete amphitheatre connects the second and third floor
When the pair were approached by the Chinese Ministry of Education in 2015, they pushed to design a different type of school with smaller class sizes and more teachers per student.
Erdu Primary School is in a rural area, which has seen a lot of its population move to large cities nearby such as Huzhou.
Walkways and flyovers connect clusters of classrooms
In response to this, Mok and Jiayu successfully proposed reducing class sizes from 45 children to 36 and building lots of outdoor and semi-outdoor spaces between them for students to socialise with each other or learn in a different environment. "Because this primary school is going to implement small-class-teaching in its curriculum, we anticipated more inter-class activities than a regular school," Mok told Dezeen.
"These activities are going to take place outside of the classrooms."
Outdoor space is for children to play and learn in
Classrooms are arranged around the school in pairs, sandwiching a teacher's office and surrounded by "pocket spaces" of greenery or playground walkways for children.
An amphitheatre connects th...