Takaharu Tezuka; Yui Tezuka
The Fuji Kindergarten is exhibited in Venice as a living interactive experience, inviting both emotional and intellectual engagement. The subject of play is, in our view, central to both adults and children alike. This delightful project shows architecture as a tool for the celebration of the limitless energy of children. The oval form of the building, the apparently invisible barriers, the integration of trees, the freespace of the roof, all combine to show the capacity of architecture to liberate the body and the spirit.
The projection of the life and sound of the building onto the oval roof of the model brings the laughter of children into the Corderie.
The Fuji Kindergarten was built in 2007 and Tezuka have gone on to build many play-spaces and schools for children.
In New Zealand they replaced a school destroyed by earthquake with a seismic resistant wooden structure informed by the wooden buildings of New Zealand. Their Ring Around a Tree project is a poetic lyrical play structure wrapping gently around the tree trunk and the canopy of leaves and branches. Their recent Asahi Kindergarten built on a slope shows children climbing under, over and inside the robust timber structure which must feel like some kind of magic treehouse, a freespace of the imagination.
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