Projects: Foreign Education

Staff -- Interior Design, 12/1/2011 2:00:00 AM

Winner: WOHA
Project: School of the Arts
Location: Singapore

This magnet high school for the visual and performing arts-think Fame set in Southeast Asia-also serves as a gateway to the city-state's cultural district. The 570,000-square-foot building stands tall. From a four-story base, containing a concert hall, two theaters, and informal performance spaces, rise three six-story structures, housing classrooms. Founding director Wong Mun Summ placed these classroom structures around three sides of the base, creating an elevated courtyard. It's crisscrossed by sky bridges, while open balconies provide access to classrooms, and outdoor staircases handle vertical circulation. From the natural ventilation and daylighting to the facade's lush vines, filtering out dust, glare, and traffic noise, green elements abound. Concrete, steel, aluminum, and glass dominate the materials palette. Summ identifies Michelangelo­'s "captive" sculptures as the inspiration for combining rough and smooth surfaces throughout the interiors. As a source for their dramatic angles, the architect cites not Fame but a seminal 1920 horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 

Merit: ELAP Arquitectos Ingenieros
Project: Guardería Municipal
Location: Vélez-Rubio, Spain

Children gaze in wonder through this day-care center's three sizes of porthole windows, their glass sandwiching colored PVB film.

Merit: XSS
Project: Starlit Learning Centre
Location: Hong Kong

Ancient Rome's city plan inspired the layout of this school for children age 2 to 6, while New York's Central Park influenced the decoration.

Merit: Kearns Mancini Architects
Project: Student services center
Location: Mississauga, Ontario

Reinventing a building at the Uni­versity of Toronto Mississauga involved inserting clerestories and skylights into the concrete roof.