Vietnamese architecture firm Vo Trong Nghia, known for sprinkling Ho Chi Minh with apartment buildings in the form of giant planters and beautiful vertical gardens stacked like lasagna, has completed another whimsical structure dressed in sumptuous greenery. The new Farming Kindergarten, while nowhere as wacky as the school shaped like a cat or propped up by a giant giraffe, does come in an amusing knot shape that cleverly forms three grassy courtyards with its loop-de-loops. The other distinctive feature, of course, is the building's winding rooftop vegetable gardens, where students will learn how to grow their own food.
This attempt at sustainable school design is the firm's response to how much rapid urbanization in the country has deprived the children of, in the designers' words, "green lands and playgrounds, thus relationship with nature." And indeed they've showered the structure with plant life. Beyond the green roof, the outer walls of the building also have concrete louvres that foster climbing plants. The 41,000-square-foot building, which will support around 500 students whose parents work at a nearby shoe factory, will also use solar power to heat water and factory waste water to irrigate the vegetation.
· Vo Trong Nghia's Farming Kindergarten
has a vegetable garden on its looping roof [Dezeen]
· Four Houses Proving That Vietnam is a Vertical Garden Hub [Curbed National]
· All Parenting Handbook posts. [Curbed National]