A Gradient of Warm Light

Project

Juan Sebastián Elcano School

Status

Competition

Type

School and kindergarten

Year

2007

Location

Castellón de la Plana, Spain

Credits

Marin Marinović
Susana Iñarra
Nenad Katić
Alex Ayala

A school conceived as a closed urban block: from the street a solid, protective edge; inside, a world of its own, open to the sky.

The block holds its programme along the edges and leaves the centre free. A large courtyard, framed by glass and concrete and planted with a few trees, belongs to the primary students: a place of passage, games and conversation between classes. The kindergarten occupies its own wing, with smaller courtyards scaled to young children and kept apart from the main yard, so that each age has its own ground within a single building.

The base is made of raw concrete and vertical fins. Above it, the upper floors are wrapped in a rhythm of simple coloured panels: cream, yellow, orange and red, shifting like a gradient of warm light. An inexpensive material becomes a veil that shades the classrooms and changes with the hour, glowing in the morning sun and deepening toward evening.

Colour here is not decoration but a daily gift. It greets the children at the gate, follows them along the corridors and filters into the rooms where they learn, a reminder that even the most ordinary building can carry joy.