Group8

Origami

Origami
©  Regis Golay 
Origami
© Regis Golay

Origami

Group8

ARCHITECTS
Group8

PHOTOS
Regis Golay (8)

STATUS
Built

YEAR
2015

LOCATION
Geneva, Switzerland

TYPE
Educational › Elementary School Nursery

This children’s area is linked to the new world headquarters of Japan Tobacco International in Geneva. Located between two imposing buildings, the headquarters of JTI and WMO, the nursery school is envisaged as an 'inhabited landscape'.

Origami
© Regis Golay
Origami
© Regis Golay

The building is based on a regular frame and alternating arches in offset bands which are spread out across the whole site and form the body of the building which is covered by a vegetated roof.

This structural principle generates either sheltered spaces when the arch is convex, or open spaces which serve as an interior playground when it is concave. The Origami nursery school derives its specific nature from the way in which it varies a repetitive geometrical principle.

Origami
© Regis Golay
Origami
© Regis Golay

There is a mixture of structural materials, the mullions, transoms and uprights being in metal and the horizontal caissons in wood.

Its architectural design can be described as the theatrical staging of the landscape aspect of the building. The entrance is created by lowering the core layer giving access to the centre of the site.

Origami
© Regis Golay
Origami
© Regis Golay

On entering one discovers play areas in relation with outside amenities and intersecting views between the different sections. The interior layout provides for differences in architectural scales corresponding to the different ages of the children.


Origami

Origami

Origami


Origami
Origami

Group8
T +41 22 5608888 F +41 22 5608800
Group8
Rue Baylon 2B, 1227 Carouge, Switzerland