Flying Cubes

This school complex is situated in the heart of Heraklion’s urban landscape, posing a challenge to find a suitably sized plot of land within the urban area. With the plot spanning 1500 square meters, its limited size presented an obstacle that needed to be overcome. After carefully analyzing the building program and on-site conditions, a solution involving three distinct building volumes was chosen. One volume occupies the ground floor, while the other two volumes are elevated above the schoolyard. This approach aimed to maximize the available schoolyard space while effectively accommodating the building program.

Schools hold significant influence as educational structures, shaping the values and knowledge of individuals and society at large. They serve as the foundation for our basic understanding, critical thinking, and judgment of the world and our way of life. The space in which education takes place plays a vital role in how children interact with their environment. It becomes their initial exposure to the concept of bourgeois society, shaping their future relationships with the broader societal context.

The fundamental concept behind this building design is to create movement both within the structure itself and in the surrounding environment. The objective is to ensure permanent freedom of movement outside the building. While the essential functions naturally take place inside the building, there is also a desire to facilitate certain activities outside. Thus, great importance is placed on the quantity and quality of the provided yard space. Despite the plot’s limitations, albeit of medium size, the primary goal is to provide the largest possible ground floor area for students to relax.

Based on building data and the specific requirements of the educational structure, calculations were made to determine the maximum feasible coverage. The necessary functions were primarily located on the ground floor, while the remaining functions were distributed across the other floors. The intention was to avoid constructing a compact volume that encompasses all functions, opting instead to distribute them in smaller, more manageable sections. The required volume was divided into four parts, with two pieces remaining on the ground floor and the others suspended above.

To ensure seamless connectivity and interaction among different functions and students, necessary vertical and horizontal axes of movement were established. A central patio serves as a unifying element, creating a circular relationship between the floors and a cylindrical connection within the space. From a structural standpoint, the support system for the two suspended volumes on the ground floor was carefully designed to prevent the creation of a closed inner courtyard, allowing it to remain free and connected to the surrounding urban space. This was achieved by supporting the volumes with numerous oblique thin steel columns, creating the necessary static conditions to securely suspend the volumes.