Kisbalázs Nursery, Gödöllő

Following our winning scheme for the design competition of the Hungarian Nursery Construction Programme in 2019 (ref: Bóbita Mintabölcsőde), we were appointed through an invited competition by the City of Gödöllő.

The core idea of our design is organising  the 3×2 group rooms and their ancillary spaces around a central space that can also be used – outside nursery hours, as an independent operation – by the city for community purposes.  This thought is linked to our belief that every public building should in some way be multi-functional, in other words it has to have the capacity to serve the needs of the wider community.

In the spatial arrangement we concentrated on perfect resolution of the functional adjacencies, creating transparent interiors filled with light, that can be opened up and joined to form larger spaces.  This is complemented by the top lit stack roof vertical extension of the group rooms and the central space.

Materiality both to the exterior and interior is characterised by the natural materials, dominantly brick and timber.

The gardens form an important and integral part of the use, where the new shading devices, pavings and storage facilities accommodate the legacy furniture and toys salvaged from the previous nursery seamlessly.

The project was delivered with remarkable care and attention, in our view predominantly thanks to the city  chief architect’s efforts – which we followed with great enthusiasm, albeit in a non-official manner.

Feedback from the city, staff and most importantly by children and parents has so far been  most positive, which is more we can wish for…