Beijing CLC Early Childhood Education Center

This project is a childcare and learning center located inside a high-rise apartment building in a luxury residential compound in central Beijing. The center primarily serves local young families. Strictly speaking, it is not entirely for children; it is also open to parents and the surrounding community. The children's center is a semi-elliptical building, four meters high. We used street play in the city as our core design concept and hoped to bring the feeling of old Beijing streets into the interior design. To meet different needs and children's preferences, we organically distributed the space and placed a container module within it. The container module is open-ended, allowing children to easily identify the function of each module space. In addition, the space can accommodate new modules or expand or shrink existing ones based on equipment needs and curriculum requirements. The container module is like a building, and the corridors between them are like streets. The intimacy of these corridors adds some private elements to the otherwise open space, which is important for children's sense of security and belonging. The project creates a preschool that feels like a neighborhood rather than an institution, using modular, street-like spatial organization to encourage independent play and social interaction.