2025 PLEČNIK MEDAL for Large-Scale Architectural Realisation

Kindergarten Bohinj

Architecture:
Ana Jerman
Janja Šušnjar
Sofía Romeo Gurrea-Nozaleda
Miguel Sotos Fernández-Zúñiga

Landscape architecture:
Luka Javornik
Lara Gligić

Data:
Kindergarten Bohinj
Category: Large-Scale Architectural Realisation
Authors: Ana Jerman, Janja Šušnjar, Sofía Romeo Gurrea-Nozaleda, Miguel Sotos Fernández-Zúñiga (architecture) and Luka Javornik, Lara Gligić (landscape architecture)
Collaborators: Urška Alič (visual identity)
Location: Bohinjska Bistrica
Year of realisation: 2023
Gross area: 2,619 sqm
Investor: Municipality of Bohinj

Photographs:
Luis Díaz Díaz

PLEČNIK MEDAL for Large-Scale Architectural Realisation

The kindergarten is sited on the edge of the largest settlement in Bohinj Valley and uses its entrance court to engage with the yard of the primary school located opposite. The dialogue between the two educational institutions is thus established both in the substantive as well as formal sense. At the same time, the kindergarten's scale is important also due to the size of its own volumes, which are based on the typology of a Bohinj homestead - with a twist: their enlargement, thanks to the coherent execution of the project, gains an architectural value all of its own. In their expanded version, the traditional elements gain a dominant significance, while the experience of the approach and the interior surprises the visitor with its openness.

Kindergarten Bohinj - Jury's report

The kindergarten is sited on the edge of the largest settlement in Bohinj Valley and uses its entrance court to engage with the yard of the primary school located opposite. The dialogue between the two educational institutions is thus established both in the substantive as well as formal sense. At the same time, the kindergarten's scale is important also due to the size of its own volumes, which are based on the typology of a Bohinj homestead - with a twist: their enlargement, thanks to the coherent execution of the project, gains an architectural value all of its own. In their expanded version, the traditional elements gain a dominant significance, while the experience of the approach and the interior surprises the visitor with its openness.

In contrast with conventional, enclosed built structures, the space is fluid and luminous, and it enables new interactions both between the interior and the exterior, the play rooms, the employees and the parents, and also between the staff. The gradation of the volumes and the way they open approximates the qualities of the environment so as to foster a rich experiential sensation of Bohinj's familiar space for all its users in a new manner. The kindergarten's architecture enables not just views to the outside and within the facility: their opening and particularly the coherent execution of the idea in construction, function, and material creates a wholly new architectural experience.

The traditional elements hold more than just formal or constructional value. They also perform a signifying role by creating an association with the traditionally enclosed Bohinj homesteads. This transformed experience introduces a new meaning of co-existence into the architectural space, one of connectedness with nature and of affording the opportunities for new social interactions and affiliations. The simple and functional design is enhanced by the traversability of all the playrooms inside as well as outside, which allows for "flexible circulation" and multi-level interactions between the kindergarteners, educators, other staff, and parents. The open space ties the various programme elements together into a whole by emphasising the simplicity and utility of the open-space design defined by natural materials which remain serviceable despite having seen intensive use, even in wintertime, and even in Bohinj Valley.

The scale of the play rooms competently runs the gamut as the furnishings correspond to the functional requirements first and foremost, yet the same elements may also be adapted for use by the children in their play corners. The kindergarten's design successfully blurs the boundaries between the interior and the open space both by means of visual connections as well as the programme, namely through the gradation of the content - of the play rooms, terraces, the garden patch, and the greened slope - from the area's centre towards the edges, while at the same time superbly mediating between the small scale of the users and the large scale of the surrounding landscape.

Show less