Origami

This children’s area is linked to the new world headquarters of Japan Tobacco International in Geneva, Switzerland. Located between two imposing buildings, the headquarters of JTI and WMO, the nursery school is envisaged as an "inhabited landscape". The building is based on a regular frame and alternating arches in offset bands which are spread out across the whole site and form the body of the building which is covered by a vegetated roof. This structural principle generates either sheltered spaces when the arch is convex or open spaces which serve as an interior playground when it is concave. The Origami nursery school derives its specific nature from the way in which it varies a repetitive geometrical principle. There is a mixture of structural materials, the mullions, transoms and uprights being in metal and the horizontal caissons in wood.

Its architectural design can be described as the theatrical staging of the landscape aspect of the building. The entrance is created by lowering the core layer giving access to the centre of the site. On entering one discovers play areas in relation with outside amenities and intersecting views between the different sections.
The interior layout provides for differences in architectural scales corresponding to the different ages of the children.