Type : Education
GFA : 70,927sqm
Construction period : 2014 - 2016
Location : Hong Kong

A school is a micro-society, a mini city within a city. It is an oasis yet has a direct relationship with the city at large. Our idea is to gather students and teachers along with the their activities, for interactions. Breaking away from the typical densely built 8-storey school building in Hong Kong with the ball court on the ground, this school adopts a low-rise 4-storey design, with the basketball court raised on the first floor, sited in the middle of the school campus, creating a focus, pulling together spaces and activities.

The old tradition of Hong Kong’s walled village is re-interpreted in the design of the school. Within the wall of the School campus, the assembly hall which reads as the town hall of the school complex, the library and the classrooms are arranged in different blocks around the central ball court, with link bridges, courtyards, street and colonnades, shaping the school as a micro polis, conceived as a whole by using major urban design elements of a city. I was working from the design via construction stage for the project. The Courtyards, streetscapes and overlooking terraces bring closer the different spaces and activities, encouraging interactions. Light finishes, along with other natural materials such as fair-faced concrete, timber and vertical greening, creates a variety of spatial experiences to be discovered. The weaved screen, inspired by the Chinese traditional screen, becoming a common element for windows and partitions in traditional houses of walled-villages in which mediate the outdoor and indoor environments, the design re-interprets the tradition in a contemporary way.