樹木を身近に感じて遊び回れる環境づくり
東京都中野区の新設保育園。敷地は約40年前につくられた街区公園と隣接空地からなり、緑豊かな憩いの場として長年地域の人々に愛されてきた。その良好な環境を形成していた既存樹木を可能な限り残すため、隣接空地側に新園舎を計画し、やむを得ず伐採した分は新たに植樹を行い、樹木に囲まれた“森の保育園”を基本コンセプトとして計画。園庭には木々を縫うように配置された園舎のテラスともつながる木製遊具を設置し、こどもたちが樹木を身近に感じながら遊び回れる環境づくりをめざした。園舎内部では、運動能力が未熟で衛生管理が必要な0～2歳児に成長段階に応じた空間を個別に用意する一方、3～5歳児保育室は可動間仕切りと可動家具によって、さまざまな保育やイベントなどに対応できるよう配慮している。
Building an environment where children can play around and feel close to trees
A new nursery school in Nakano Ward, Tokyo. The site consists of a district park, built about 40 years earlier, and an adjoining empty lot. It has been loved by local people for many years, as a green place for relaxing. The basic concept of this plan was a “forest nursery school” surrounded by trees, so to preserve as many as possible of the existing trees that have formed that good environment, our plan put the new nursery building on the adjoining empty lot. Trees that unavoidably had to be cut down were replaced with newly-planted trees. We installed wooden play equipment to tie the trees of the garden together and link them to the terrace of the nursery building. Our aim was to make an environment where children can feel close to the trees as they play around through it. The interior of the nursery building has individual spaces adapted to the growth stages of children aged zero to two years, who have undeveloped exercise capacity and need hygiene management. For children aged three to five years, on the other hand, we used movable partitions and furniture to allow the childcare rooms to adapt to diverse types of care and events etc.
