POD House

POD House
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong

POD HOUSE

LIBEN Design

ARCHITECTS
LIBEN Design

MANUFACTURERS
C.I. Takiron Corporation

DESIGN TEAM
Nicolas Bai, Qian Li, Fang He, Huifang Sun, Yinmei Li, Jiawei Tian

STRUCTURAL DESIGN
Shanghai Construction Design Co.ltd.

ENGINEERING
Shanghai Haiyi Construction Development Co.ltd

ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Qian Li, Nicolas Bai

CLIENT
Shanghai Municipal Kindergarten

LIGHTING CONSULTANT
Xiu Yang

PHOTOGRAPHS
Lei Dong

AREA
120 m²

YEAR
2019

LOCATION
Shanghai, China

CATAGORY
Kindergarten, Renovation

POD House
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong

Text description provided by architect.

Urban renewal is becoming one of the important roles in urban development. In addition to community and business renovation, some schools in the city center are also faced with the problem of land shortage and unable to expand.

POD House
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Aerial. Image © Lei Dong

Therefore, it is worth thinking to solve the problem how to make effective transformation and utilization of the existing campus site for extension of functions and more spaces under constraint conditions.

The project is located at a kindergarten in Xuhui district of Shanghai with enclosed L-shaped. The south and west sides of the base are intensely close to the wall and adjacent to the residential area.

POD House
Main entrance. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Interior. Image © Lei Dong

The internal facilities are placed at the east side, while the north side is the internal road of the kindergarten. The original function of the project is the abandoned laundry.

It is asked for making the laundry be rebuilt into a space for students’ demands of learning and dancing.

POD House
Activity. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Activity. Image © Lei Dong

Complying with some requirements, the building boundary is not allowed to be over the original campus wall, and the height is not allowed to be out of the original building height.

Those external pools, rockery, and other facilities are needed to be retained. Covering an area of 120 ㎡, this is a typical project like casting masterpieces in the pigeonholes.

POD House
Interior. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Interior. Image © Lei Dong

Owning a live nature, children love running and exploring. The design retained the original L-shaped enclosure and implanted a pod space from the perspective of their activity characteristics.

The space embraced by arc-shaped walls fully releases the children's energies and provides the possibility of diverse activities for both teachers and students. Its external negative space gives auxiliary functions such as storage, changing and washing.

POD House
Interior. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Activity. Image © Lei Dong

On the southwest side of the building, a courtyard was made outside of the pods which can solve some problems of ventilation.

At the same time, a simple climbing net is installed above the courtyard, which not only meets safety protection, but also is a small adventure corner.

The roof has kept the shape of pods, setting up a circular roof track and a playground for children. Two center skylights provide sufficient lighting for the pea house.

POD House
Skylight. Image © Lei Dong
POD House
Staircase connected with main entrance. Image © Lei Dong

A small climbing slope is designed around the circular skylights. A pod-shaped skylight serves as a glass path for children to explore.

The relationship between the sight lines from skylights also makes the dialogue in the space more vivid and interesting.

The design sets three different special-shaped mirrors named Doumiao Jing on the wall to meet the needs of dancing room. The shape of the mirror echoes the curve of the plane and the specular reflection also amplifies the size of space.

Those indoor different-sized round holes together with the specular reflection of stainless steel and circular skylights of furred ceiling blurred indoor boundary, meanwhile increased dimensional interest.

POD House
Roof terrace. Image © Lei Dong


POD House
First floor plan
POD House
Roof floor plan


POD House
Section
POD House
Sectional detail