The first WeGrow school for children ages 3 to 9 in New York City is the result of the successful collaboration between BIG and WeWork. The interactive learning landscape supports a conscious educational approach for the children of the 21st century and promotes their creative thinking. The learning universe covers an area of 930 square meters and is located in the WeWork headquarters in Manhattan's Chelsea district.
Varied learning environment for children
The children can move freely through all the rooms throughout the day and learn from their surroundings or the interaction with one another. The learning landscapepromotes collaboration, highlighting transparent and collaborative spaces that make up more than half of the school. There are four classrooms, flexible workshops, community room, multi-purpose studio, art studio, music room and other playscapes.
Promotes child education through introspection, exploration and discovery
Most school partitions consist of shelving systems that correspond to the child's height. This allows natural light to penetrate deep into the building. Three different levels of shelving for each age group weave through the space to create different activity areas and provide a sense of comfort, safety and community, while teachers have a full view of the room at all times. Felt acoustic panels on the ceiling depict various patterns from nature (fingerprint, coral and moon) and light up with Ketra bulbs that change color and intensity depending on the time of day.
Each learning station in WeGrow includes furniture with details and materials carefully designed by BIG to optimize the learning environment: modular classrooms encourage movement and collaboration, puzzle tables and chairs manufactured by Bendark Studios are available in child and parent sizes, to offer equal perspectives. The vertical garden with tiles made in Switzerland by Laufen hosts different plants depending on the lighting conditions.
Architects:Bjarke Ingels Group
Address: 421 8th Ave, New York, NY 10001, USA
Area: 930.0 m2
Project year: 2018
Photographs: Dave Burk, Laurian Ghinitoiu
