Nanjing Software Valley School: the Square Courtyard, for an open campus community

Nanjing Software Valley, where the project is located, is the largest R & D base of communication software industry in China. After nearly a decade of rapid development and construction, the early planned urban grid has already filled with various functional formats such as R & D, residential and commercial, presenting the modern new town style with complete Street outline and numerous high-rise buildings. The construction of the new campus injects vitality into the development mode of single function, is the humanistic repair of the fast-growing grid city, and becomes the last "puzzle" of basic education in the construction of the new city.
The Software Valley School, which can accommodate 1,800 students from 6 to 18 years old, is composed of 48 classes of international elementary schools, 18 classes of junior high schools, and 18 classes of international high schools. The new campus is composed of two blocks, A and B. Among them, block A will be adjacent to another public primary school(in block C), and will be "combined" into a 300m*300m urban block.
How to treat the "one divided into two" square land became the starting point of the design. The design concept originated from the integration of urban blocks into a spatial prototype enclosed by “one” and “square”, introducing the spatial model of the public community into it, forming the basic building block of the campus organism—the “square courtyard” , which attempts to introduce the ideal community space model into it, and forms a complex and diverse architectural system through simple and clear prototype units. Three square courtyards respectively accommodate the international elementary school and the junior and senior high schools, which are the basic units that carry teaching functions and public life. The units are "layered" up and down, with the upper part accommodating most of the teaching rooms, and the lower part is a large public space and a rich three-dimensional site, which maximizes the accessibility and diversity of the campus communication space.
The "Square" prototype centers on the basic building type of "courtyard", and organizes the building volume as the boundary. The “yard” settlement not only “stitched” the originally isolated and fragmented urban land, and reshaped the overall style of the city block; it also carried the core function of “teaching and learning”. The traditional courtyard merged with campus life, showing an open "three-dimensional street" space full of diverse possibilities. Students of different grades and age groups can meet here, Coexist and communicate. The multi-functional hall or gymnasium embedded in the "court" becomes the core space of each courtyard, introducing the consciousness of the public community into it, with strong cohesion and concentricity. The homogeneous place creation makes it possible to maximize the public opening and social interaction of campus space, and integrate urban space, teaching characteristics and community meaning into one, forming a naturally open campus community with a sense of belonging.The prototype unit of the "Square courtyard" allows the two schools to share the sports ground and public facilities with each other on the premise of retaining the "green fence".
At the same time, the campus plays the role of cohesive community. The auditorium, gymnasium and the swimming pool can all be used independently, so as to serve the people in the community during school holidays and create a new type of school and community relationship.
In order to maximize the use of natural ventilation and daylighting, and reduce heating and cooling loads, passive energy-saving strategies are used in all aspects of design, ranging from architectural layout and geometry to the detailed design of exterior windows.
The spatial form of the "square courtyard " adapts to the regional climate characteristics, and is vertically "layered" overhead. The high-rise atrium is used to guide natural ventilation in the public open space and provide a shaded activity place for the hot summer climate. The tall and large public houses are embedded in the courtyard, scattered and distributed, and the wind-extracting side courtyard, daylighting skylights, light pipes and other methods are used to provide a comfortable physical environment indoors. The undulating roof becomes a place for teachers and students activities.
The south window adopts the aluminum alloy horizontal sunshade sleeve protruding from the exterior wall, which is rational and rhythmic; the east-west periphery is a continuous and homogeneous vertical aluminum alloy perforated sunshade, and the dense sunshade components not only ensure the visual transparency and natural ventilation, but also effectively block the east-west sunlight bask in, which make the light that enters indoor become downy and changeful.
The rainwater recovery pool collects rainwater from the underground to irrigate the campus greenery, and the roof uses renewable energy technologies such as solar hot water and solar photovoltaic panels.