This is a kindergarten we designed in 2007. And we made this kindergarten to be a circle. It's a kind of angel circulation on top of the roof. And if you are a parent, you know that kids... love to keep making circles. And this is how rooftop is looking like.
And when we are designing this, principal of this kindergarten said, no, I don't want handrail. I said, it's impossible. But he insisted.
And how about having a net sticking out from the edge of the roof so that we can't catch the children falling off? I said it's impossible. And of course, the government official said, of course you have to have a handrail.
But we could keep that idea around the trees. There are three trees popping through. And we allowed to call this rope as a handrail.
But of course, rope has nothing to do with them. They fall into the net. And you get more, and more, more. Sometimes 40 children are on the tree. And the boy on the branch, he loves the tree, so he's eating the tree.
And at the time of event, they sit on the edge. It looks so nice from underneath. Monkey in the zoo. Feeding time.
Okay. And we made the roof as low as possible. Because we wanted to see children on top of the roof.
Not only underneath the roof. And if the roof is too high, you see only the ceiling. and the leg washing place there are many kinds of water taps, you know you see that the freaks would choose, that is the one to spray water to your friends and the shower and the one in front is quite normal but you know, if you look at this the boy is not washing his boots, he's putting water into his boots okay This kindergarten is completely open most of the year. And there is no boundary between inside and outside.
So it means basically this architecture is roof. And also there is no boundary between classrooms. So there is no acoustic barrier at all. You know, when you put many children in this quiet box, some of them get really nervous. But in this kindergarten, there is no reason they get nervous.
nervous, because there is no boundary. And the principal says, if the boy on the corner don't want to stay in the room, we let him go. And he will come back eventually, because the circle comes back. But the point is, you know, in that kind of occasion, usually children try to hide somewhere.
But here, just they leave and they come back. It's a natural process. And secondly, we consider.
noise is very important. And you know that children sleep better in noise. They don't sleep in quiet space.
And in this kindergarten, these children show amazing concentration in the class. And you know that, you know, we are the kind grown up in jungle with noise. They need noise.
And you know, you can talk to your friends in noisy bar. You're not supposed to be in... silence and you know these days we are trying to you know make everything under control you know it's completely open and you should know that we can go Ski in minus 20 degree in winter.
In summer you go for swimming the sun is 50 degree. We are the kind and also you should know that you are waterproofed you never get melt in rain. So children were supposed to be outside. So that is how we should treat them. And this is how they divide the classrooms.
They were supposed to help teachers. They don't. I didn't put him in. And the classroom. And the wash basin.
They talk each other around the well. And always there are some trees in the classroom. A monkey trying to fish another monkey from above.
Monkey. And each classroom has at least one skylight. And this is where Santa Claus comes down at the time of Christmas. And this is an next building, right next to the over-shaped kindergarten.
And the building is only five meters tall with seven floors. And of course, ceiling height is very low, so we have to consider safety. So we put our children, daughter and son. They try to crawl in. He hit his head.
He's okay. His skull is quite strong. He's resilient. That's my son. And he's trying to see if it is safe to jump off.
And then we put other children. Traffic jam is awful in Tokyo, you should know. Bad driver in front. You know, she needs to learn to drive.
And now, these days, kids need small dosage of danger. And in this kind of occasion, they learn to help each other. This is society. This is the kind of opportunity we are losing these days. Now, this drawing is showing the movement of war between 10 past 9 to 30 past 9. And the circumference of the building is 183. meters so it's not exactly small at all and this boy made 6,000 meters in the morning but a surprise is not yet to come the children in this kindergarten makes 4,000 meters as a village And these children have the highest athletic abilities amongst many kindergartens.
And the principal says, I don't train them. We leave them on top of the roof, just like a sheep. They keep running. My point is don't control them, don't protect them too much, and they need to tumble sometimes. They need to get some injury, and that makes them learn how to live in this world.
I think architecture is capable of changing this world, you know, life of people. And this is one of the attempts to change the life of children. Thank you very much.