Tür: Anaokulu, Çocuk Oyun Alanı
Durum: Mansiyon Ödülü
İşveren: YAC Young Architects Competitions, Unipol
Lokasyon: Laveno Mombello, Italya
Tasarım Ekibi: Buğra Eser, Kerem Yeşildağ

“Living in that childish wonder is a most beautiful feeling - I can so well remember it. There was always something more - behind and beyond everything - to me, the golden spectacles were very, very big.” ― Kate Greenaway

​

Childhood; it is a time when reality is complementary to the imagination. They look at the world through different glasses. What we see is not what they see most of the time. According to their perspective, every space can be something else; every place can be somewhere else. For them, a ruin or a cave; can be a time warp or a playground. For them, the Alps can be a giant superhero, and the Lake Maggiore can be a large glass of water. Their needs; A background for their extraordinary adventures, where they can complete and explore their imagination.

The former pottery of Laveno Mombello is a 27,000 square meter gigantic titan. Destroying this factory with a history of 141 years in urban memory; To rebuild something else, will be as painful as killing a child that raised by Laveno-Mombello, as well as to miss a surprise opportunity for children to constantly discover. Therefore, instead of killing it, it is aimed to tame this gigantic titan by dressing it with a new outfit (creating a new interface) and scaling it’s internal fiction.

Kid’s Factory; thanks to the new interface of the pottery, in contrast to its plain and simple appearance on the scale of the city, it offers a world that the children can freely walk around and experience, with the space of entertaining interaction behind the Pietro Portaluppi’s entrance building. With the new interface, the historical entrance building was now able to stand out, as it is the main entrance.

​

This entrance building, where the main approach was taken, was re-functionalized as a reception and exhibition area on the lower floor and as a library on the upper floor.

With the slabs cut, the production building; it has become a place where even adults can feel like children. At the same time, visual communication between the interior space has been established. The old concrete ceiling has been converted into glass. This maximizes the light received and offers guests an indoor experience under the stars.

On the side of the factory, which is in a single storey height, an inner garden is formed to facilitate the horizontal connection and to create a free space for children. The spaces around this inner garden are arranged and connected with the playground. This playground proposal has provided circulation and continuous play. This proposal, which starts with the entrance building, travels the whole building and brings back guests from the same point; it served as a compass within the whole structure.

The ruined train bridge, which was left alone at the end, was joined to the structure by two different branches with the new construction and a new camp life was built on and around this bridge. The fact that the camp proposal was at the end point of the project area defined a more private and intimate space. Together with the green texture flowing in the middle of the bridge, children are presented with a camping experience that is intertwined with nature. At the same time, an activity square is defined at the point where this green texture strikes the structure.