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This project, from the very beginning, was not about “designing a beautiful school”, but about creating an environment that works in tandem with the educational system. Letovo, in general, follows a non-standard approach: it’s not a story of “coming in, sitting at a desk, and waiting out the lesson”. There are many different scenarios – children work in groups, in circles, on the floor, constantly switching between formats – and it was important for us first to understand this, to really absorb it, and only then translate it into interior architecture.



We started from the architecture itself: there were three volumes – the preschool block, the primary school, and the middle school – and each had its own idea. The kindergarten is a kind of “little town”, which is why the interiors feature small houses, pitched roofs, niches, and tactile elements. It’s an environment where a child should feel safe, yet constantly encouraged to explore.



In the primary school, the theme of a “greenhouse” begins to emerge: more glass, more greenery, a more complex environment where the child starts to interact with space in a different way. And in the middle school, it becomes almost a “technology hub” – with metal, more restrained forms, deeper colors, coworking areas, and spaces for teamwork. If you walk through the entire building, you can clearly see how the interior grows up together with the child.



At the same time, it was important for us not simply to replicate the architectural image, but to imbue it with function. In fact, every millimeter of space here was carefully considered: how a child moves, where they rest, where they concentrate. We worked closely with educational consultants and with the school’s principal – they explained in detail how lessons are conducted, where children need to focus, and where, on the contrary, they should be active. And the design had to support this, not get in the way.

A separate major theme was color. We created an entire presentation on how color affects perception, because in a school it is not merely decorative. In classrooms, it should not be distracting, while in recreational areas it can, on the contrary, set the mood. Moreover, for different age groups these are entirely different solutions: younger children respond only to pure colors; in primary school, more nuanced tones appear; and in middle school, the palette becomes deeper and more complex. This was a substantial effort, carried out in parallel with the development of functional solutions.



Another important aspect was that the school set out from the beginning to help reveal children’s talents. As a result, the space includes many things that simply do not exist in a typical school: small stages where a child can perform during breaks, tactile walls, play elements, areas for board games, coworking spaces. Even the cafeteria is not just a cafeteria – there is a glass cube where children learn to cook. In this way, the school becomes not a set of classrooms, but an environment for many different types of activity.



At the same time, we constantly had to balance between idea and reality. This is a school, which means everything must be as durable and safe as possible. For example, what looks like wood is in most cases laminate or metal – simply because natural wood would quickly wear out here. Or take handrails: you can design them to be as elegant as you like, but in reality they have to be vandal-resistant, otherwise none of it would last even a year.

In the end, it was a very complex but very rewarding experience. Because here, design does not exist for its own sake – it functions as a tool: it has to help the educational model work. In essence, we were not so much ‘decorating’ the space as trying to reinforce the processes embedded in this school.

For us, this was not about “dressing up” a given volume, but about assembling it into a legible environment, where the façade works as navigation and as a means of communication with different age groups. We deliberately rejected a single unifying device: each block was given its own character – through rhythm, texture, and the scale of elements. In some places the articulation is finer; in others it becomes enlarged, almost industrial in its motifs.

It was important that a child could recognize their ‘own’ place not only inside but also from the outside – hence the classrooms are expressed on the façade as individual ‘houses,’ rather than as an abstract grid. At the same time, the connecting elements are made as neutral as possible, so as not to compete with this identity or overload perception.

In material terms, it is also a fairly heterogeneous system: standing seam metal, fiber cement, fiber-reinforced concrete, different types of glazing – we assembled a palette that allows us to work with tactility, light, and the depth of the façade. In a sense, it is a kind of construction kit, but governed by a fairly strict logic.

And perhaps the key point: the façade here is not a decorative shell, but a continuation of the internal structure – it literally ‘shows’ how the building is organized and how different groups inhabit it. It was important for us that this connection could be read without explanation.