Fjellhaug Friluftsbarnehage

Daycare and Early Education Center 

Frakkagjerd, Norway
Client: Tysvær kommune
Size:    784 m2

Our clients were looking into simultaneous design and construction of two new kindergartens in their municipality. A major criterion for their review of proposals would be “innovative approach to design of the kindergartens for future”. We chose to approach this project in collaboration with a movement artist who had been working with children for the last 10 years in various capacities. We won the commission for both kindergartens and went through a parallel design process which has produced two extremely different kindergartens for this community.

Conceptually we explored three major ideas:

The first idea is the significant role Play plays in early education. We used the phrase “Play to learn, Learn to play” as a guideline. Here the word Play is used in its most extensive sense.

The second idea was that the built environment plays an active role in this program. The third and final idea is that the children would learn better when they actively participate in the programming of their daily activities.

The result is a building that is more of a Stage for learning and events than a kindergarten as we have come to understand the type. This became our working thesis and the most important guideline. Series of stages, differentiated by scale, light, materiality and connection to the outdoors are conducive to different activities for various group sizes at any given time.

Nestling between two natural heights in a granite landscape with a wide horizon, unusual for western Norway, the building acts as a bridge. Unlike the traditional relationship between the playground and building we have woven the playground in, out, below and above the building. This affords the kids an extraordinary bond to their environment and allows them to use different stages of this differentiated environment for diverse activities at different times.