Vibrant Hues Pop In This Renovated School In China

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Early Education

Color and shapes are among the first things that children learn. After a facade redo that brought pizzazz to a drab concrete building, the Times China TIC Kindergarten school in Foshan, China, might well help students learn those fundamental concepts. The original building was rather forbidding with its hard lines and uniform gray. To make it livelier and more welcoming, while also modulating sunlight and heat gain, C&C Design Co. sheathed portions of the 17,200-square-foot project in perforated aluminum sheets, some of which were painted happy, nature-related colors and given rounded cutouts. The mesh panel enclosing an outdoor staircase, for instance, is vibrant green, with diagonal elliptical openings so that the pint-size attendees can see out while going up and down over the course of the school day. That same green peps up enclosures that expand outward around some windows, while blue was applied to others. The entry, meanwhile, is bright yellow.

PROJECT TEAM: PENG ZHENG; ZENG QINGHAO.