Nursery School
LOCATION Senegal, Africa
YEAR 2025
PROGRAM Nursery School
STATUS Schematic Design
PROJECT BRIEF
The aim of the project is to find an architectural model for a nursery school that promotes the well-rounded development of children by providing a safe, stimulating and inclusive environment. Architecture should support the right to education and well-being by creating the ideal psycho-physical conditions for the development of each child.
It should provide a space that goes beyond a mere educational function, integrating opportunities for play, socialization and exploration, and serving as a focal point for the entire community.
We seek an architecture that inspires trust and serenity in children, families and the community – an inviting, unique and symbolic environment where every child can feel valued and supported in their growth.
DESIGN IDEA
In the soft folds of southern Senegal, where the land hums with stories of resilience and rhythm, a nursery school takes shape, not as monument, but as a continuation of rhythm, of ritual, of care.
In Senegal, we did not build a school; we invited the land to teach.
The walls are not walls, but layers of soil and time, folded gently into space. Opened not only for light, but for air, for children, for shadows to dance. Architecture should disappear into its surroundings. Here, we did not design objects, we designed relationships. Between children and nature, between shadow and play, between the community and the earth.
The long wall is not a barrier. It is a filter, a quiet rhythm of openings that creates a dialogue with the sun. A child running by becomes part of the architecture by tracing light, touching texture, making memory.
We believe in using the weakest materials to make the strongest spaces. Earth, bamboo, gravel; all soft, all quiet. But together, they create a space of dignity, of beginning, of hope. This school is not just a place to learn, but a lesson in itself in humility, in patience, and in the power of community. It reminds us that sometimes, the greatest structures are those that ask us to lean in, to listen, and to become part of the world we inhabit.
Where every corner invite curiosity, every threshold connects inside and out. The school is a seed rooted in the soil of the village, shaped by its culture, and growing through community.
