Bernardo Estrela Social Association has asked us to project a kindergarten at Ribeira Grande, in São Miguel Island for children between 0 and 2 years old.

The project’s goal is to provide a space as large as possible for children and staff thus creating exciting situations through a combination of a clearly structured room design and the topography of the roof landscape.

There were two main ideas that existed at the start of the project, based on children’s special perception of the constructed environment. The first idea has to do with scale and tries to combine the general volumetrics of the public facility with the more intimate and domestic scale that must accompany the child.

The second idea fulfils the conception of the centre as a significant experience in spatial terms, related to the children’s creative world. The proposal has to do with the sensorial relationship between children and architecture, through the use of space, light, materiality and colour.