AR Awards for Emerging Architecture	Highly commended	December 2007
TAKAHARU + YUI TEZUKA ARCHITECTS	Kindergarten	Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan
Tezuka Architects’ Fuji Kindergarten leads the way. Takaharu + Yui Tezuka are no strangers to the AR or the Awards for Emerging Architecture; their stunning Museum of Natural Science received a commendation in 2004. They are also no strangers to children, combining their busy professional lives (teaching and practising) with their shared role as parents. Observing their own children at play led to the concept for this building as an elevated circular play space (AR August 2007). ‘Children love to run in circles’, states Takaharu when describing the genesis of this building. This idea meshed well with the client’s simple brief, having visited Roof House (AR October 2001), he wanted a roof house for 500 children. The building’s distinctive form also supports the kindergarten’s mode of operation, the Montessori education method, by providing a flexible, robust and secure framework within which to encourage key notions of independence and freedom. Despite being the largest single kindergarten in Japan, the scale is not overwhelming, and the relatively low roof compresses a series of intimate dual aspect classrooms. With full-height sliding screens on both sides, the five principal spaces open onto the central play area and a number of smaller residual gardens at the site’s perimeter. With Japan’s climate allowing screens to be open eight months of the year, spaces merge with each other and with the gardens, satisfying a key aspect of the Montessori methodology; satisfaction, contentment and joy are encouraged when children are able to fully participate in daily activities, individually and collectively, in a place where they can understand, engage with and control their own environment. Playful touches include the outdoor taps that allow children to clean up and wash down, set on a free draining area of timber logs; glazed rooflights, that give peep-hole views from between roof and classroom; and the slide that provides the most direct route down from the roof. R. G. Architect Takaharu + Yui Tezuka Architects, Tokyo and Masahiro Ikeda Co Project team Takaharu Tezuka, Yui Tezuka, Masahiro Ikeda, Asako Konparu, Kousuke Suzuki Photographs Katsuhisa Kida Email tez@sepia.ocn.ne.jp