POLKKA-DOT KINDERGARTEN AND COMMUNITY CENTER
ESPOOSSA, FINLAND. 2004. A competition submission for a combined kindergarten and community center facility. The design makes a connection to the town square with the two-story community center, while the low one-story kindergarten stretches out from it towards the park and landscape beyond. The kindergarten spaces are designed to perform in overlapping ways that transition between individual and group functions.
The ‘drum’ can be used as a single space for collective activities such as dancing, theater or larger-scale art projects, or divided in two for expansion space for each of the flanking multipurpose spaces. The kindergarten building and the natural landscape are designed to be integrated as a piece. The large windows to the southwest open onto the sculpted landscape of play areas, planter beds, water play, and jungle gyms, and the park beyond.
