Project description by Andrés Galera
This NEE Classroom is designed as a semi-autonomous unit to attend to and meet the needs of students with autism and can function independently at certain times during the school year as required by the teaching circumstances. The program is composed of a main classroom space, an adapted toilet, an outdoor covered space and a vegetable garden area.
Who is it for?
The Andalusian Public Agency of Education proposes as a project program the construction of a new classroom in the CEIP Los Rosales school in Mairena del Aljarafe, province of Seville. In this case, it is an extension to provide the center with a space for children with special needs.
NEE Classroom CEIP Los Rosales by Andrés Galera. Photograph by Juanca Lagares.
Why?
From the beginning of the conception of the architectural proposal, we avoided exclusively designing a classroom, as there was a social commitment. The uniqueness of the users and the location proposed for this project required a more complex reflection to generate a space adapted to the real needs, prioritizing the quality of life of its inhabitants and the community. In this case, inhabiting the margin appears in two of the main axes of the architectural proposal. On the one hand, to inhabit the margin of the existing building due to its condition of limit of the building, but on the other hand, also to extend the inhabited area of the classroom to the intermediate spaces of interior-exterior transition, without limiting itself to an interior performance as a system that resists to change. The inhabiting of the limit allows to have a diversity of spaces that contribute to support and improve the teaching model of this group of students and that allow to increase the stimulation of their senses. This rupture of the margins, without clearly identifying where the boundary between inside and outside or between classroom and playground is, allows conceiving a continuous and unique environment functioning as a whole.
The initial conditions are particularly adverse for the proposed building typology. On the one hand, the area where the new classroom is to be located is excessively elongated for an educational space, with a width of less than 5 meters. On the other hand, the new building will be located between the existing building and the boundary wall of the houses. As it is practically 3 meters lower than the adjoining plots, the height of these boundaries will not be exceeded at any time, therefore, the two largest walls of the building are party walls, with the problems that this entails in terms of natural lighting of the interior living space. The building will be 18 meters long by 5 meters wide approximately, and only the south front of 5 meters can be considered a full facade, through which the entire classroom will have to be illuminated.
NEE Classroom CEIP Los Rosales by Andrés Galera. Photograph by Juanca Lagares.
A series of inclined planes are proposed to cover the space between the two dividing elements and thus make it as open and diaphanous as possible, since these are minimum dimensions. With the set of inclined planes a skylight will be created with the aim of illuminating the northern part of the classroom, since the southern opening is not enough. This dynamism of the roof also creates a visual link between the spaces of the classroom and the rest of the schoolyard to the south and to the north with the street at a higher level.
The classroom has been designed taking into account the Teacch method used by the teaching team of these students in their teaching system, which has great benefits in their learning and improvement. In relation to this method, a spatial structuring based on spaces designed to house each one a specific activity has been projected. The change in ceiling height and, above all, the gradient of natural lighting, allows the creation of space for greater activity in the areas with greater lighting and free height and rest spaces in the less illuminated areas and with a lower free height. At the same time, a buffer space is projected between the interior of the classroom and the courtyard. A covered outdoor classroom exclusively for these students. As an outdoor recreational space, a fenced area is created to serve as a vegetable garden with aromatic herbs, stimulating the senses of the students and the contact with the natural environment. The building has an energy rating of A, being a building of almost zero consumption.
