As a city founded over 3,000 years ago, Beijing has a culture that hinges on its relationship to its rich past. Architecturally speaking, the depth of that connection, according to Ma Yansong, lies in the negative spaces. The founder and principal of Beijing-based MAD Architects is specifically talking about the firm’s recently completed Courtyard Kindergarten, an unusual school that surrounds and preserves a group of 300-year-old residences in a traditional siheyuan courtyard (one surrounded on all four sides). “That’s the beauty of the city,” he says. “It’s about emptiness between the buildings, not about the buildings themselves.” This idea, along with fusing the old and the new, was the basis of the firm’s strategy for this project.
The architect, who was born and raised in Beijing, says he lived in a similar courtyard house when he was young and that this fusion of indoor/outdoor living spaces is unique to the Chinese capital. By building the 85,000-square-foot kindergarten around the existing 9,500- square-foot courtyard, Yansong gave new life to the limited site, repurposing the existing structures into classrooms, and its original central courtyards as three distinct outdoor spaces: two will serve as outdoor learning centers and one as an area for ceremonies and events.
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