Architects:Naf Architect & Design

Area:238m²

Year:2022

Photographs:Toshiyuki Yano

Principal Architect:Akio Nakasa

Architect:Masaya Kato

City:Machida

Country:Japan

Text description provided by the architects. An international school that provides a nursery and after-school program designed on the campus of Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. The site was designated at the end of a tree-lined avenue extending from the university’s central plaza. It was a hill-like place with a height difference of about 2 meters, and I was told that the hill was made of leftover soil that had been piled up when the student dormitory next to it was built. The site was segregated by a surrounding chain link fence, and it seemed detached from the entire campus as being located at the far end, where weeds grow so thick that you might hesitate to enter in the summer. There was a cut in the center that divided the hill into two, and a smoking area was set up at the back, probably because it was out of sight from the surrounding area.

The above explanation may give a negative impression, but when I first visited the site, my impression was the exact opposite. Its location on the large university campus, at the end of a tree-lined avenue that extends from the central plaza, was very easy to find. Beyond that, the road outside the campus was lined with attractive cherry blossom trees. It is common for nursery schools to build artificial hills in their gardens, and after consulting with the director, we decided to use an existing hill as an artificial hill. The assumption is that the entire garden is an artificial hill and would be positively used as a three-dimensional field to accept the activities and imagination of the children. To reduce the amount of soil removed during construction, the school building was built away from the center of the hill, moved to the side, and stretched along a road in front, lined with cherry blossom trees. The roof of the nursery building is kept low so that when you stand on the hill, you can see the surrounding trees and scenery.

There is an outdoor hallway under the roof's eaves, and a retaining wall separates the hallway from the hill. To minimize the earthwork, we opted to narrow the hallway where the hill is high and the amount of soil is large by pushing the retaining wall toward the building and broadening the hallway where the hill is low. However, due to operational requirements, the hallway was broadened where wide hallway was requested to put sofas for children to gather or there is a lot of traffic and narrowed in front of the playground for children aged 0 to 1 to ensure safety. The location of the earth retaining wall was considered to balance both conditions. As a result, the hallway and the hill are connected by earth retaining walls that are cranked at seven locations along the 47m length of the building, and the eaves are also extended and cranked accordingly. To prevent rain from entering the hallway, the top edge of the retaining wall was cut diagonally toward the hill.