Concrete Rhythm, Yellow Warmth

Project

Almassora School

Status

Competition

Type

School and kindergarten

Year

2010

Location

Almassora, Spain

Credits

Marin Marinović
Susana Iñarra
Alex Ayala

A primary school and kindergarten in Almassora, conceived as a small campus for a large and ambitious programme.

The plan organises the two age groups as distinct worlds with a shared heart. The kindergarten classrooms line up along a sheltered garden, each opening onto its own small patio shaded by trees, while the primary school gathers around a generous playground and sports courts. A covered gallery ties everything together, offering shade, circulation and a place to meet in any weather.

The upper volume is made of prefabricated concrete fins repeated along the entire façade. Their steady rhythm gives the school a civic presence, the dignity of a public building, while filtering the Mediterranean sun into the classrooms.

At ground level the architecture softens. Bright yellow walls, pierced by round windows of different sizes, and yellow accents along the gallery bring warmth and play to the children's scale. Colour becomes the link between the monumental and the human, between the school and the street it belongs to.