Cloud-shaped sound-absorbing panels, classrooms that look like vegetable gardens, warm and cold colours innovatively combined, soft and enveloping sounds. With the arrival of spring, 35 Italian schools have revived.
The School making project – promoted by Enel Cuore, the Group’s non-profit organisation that supports the third sector together with the Reggio Children Foundation Loris Malaguzzi Centre – aims at improving the quality of educational spaces of 60 Italian sites in three years, in order to promote relations between the pupils with each other, with families and the community.
In particular, the initiative addresses pre- and primary schools and involves children aged 3 to 11. The spaces are not only refurbished, but redesigned based on their multi-sensorial qualities, so that the use of colours, the setting of lights and the shape of tables and chairs stimulate the children’s education and awaken curiosity, playfulness, discovery.
In March, 7 inaugurations are scheduled in Rovigo (4 March), Reggio Calabria (6 March) and Naples (11 March), as well as in Fabriano (March 14), Portoscuso (22 March), Milan (March 25) and Cosenza (31 March). On the 17, Reggio Emilia - the ‘city with the most beautiful nurseries in the world’ - will host a conference on ‘Reflections and debates on changes in schools’.
Every project is different. In Rovigo, the Gianni Rodari school has been equipped with ‘thematic islands’ that the author of ‘Fables on the phone’ would have liked: small coloured houses, with soft work areas, illuminated by lamps suspended in mid-air, surrounded by cloud-shaped sound-absorbing panels. Synthetic grass rounds cover the ground, so that the pupils can feel the fun associated with school gardens, without experiencing a break between the inside and the outside, the internal and external environment.
In the Archi primary school in Reggio Calabria, a material -digital studio and a space equipped for children with special needs were set up, while warm and cool colours were better balanced. At the Fontanelle in Naples, the multifunctional entrance was enhanced by using modular furniture and equipment, while the classrooms were designed to recall gardens and natural environments. A green heart in Enel Cuore.