Learning Under the Canopy Elementary School

Learning Under the Canopy Elementary School is conceived as an educational environment shaped directly by its park setting and the belief that play is a fundamental driver of learning. Drawing influence from The Third Teacher, the architecture supports children’s creativity, independence, and curiosity through spaces that feel open, playful, and connected to the landscape. Rather than imposing a conventional school form onto the site, the project disperses program elements across a series of elevated volumes, allowing classrooms, gathering areas, and play zones to sit lightly within the trees. The result is a campus where movement, exploration, and learning occur fluidly and simultaneously.

The organizational strategy responds to field-theory principles, replacing rigid grids and platonic geometries with an ordering system defined by proximities, radii, and natural relationships. Existing trees become anchors that shape the placement and scale of the architecture. Their canopies generate negative spaces around which the building volumes settle, while radial decks extend from each trunk to create elevated paths, outdoor rooms, and unique circulation routes. These layered walkways invite students to take varied paths between learning spaces, encouraging interaction with nature, peers, and different parts of the campus throughout the day.

By integrating the school directly into the park landscape, the design fosters a continuous relationship between education and the natural world. Shaded decks, open-air bridges, and screened learning terraces blur the threshold between classroom and canopy, offering children opportunities for play, observation, and wonder as part of their daily routine. The architecture frames learning as an exploratory journey, where movement through space becomes an extension of the curriculum. Learning Under the Canopy creates a setting where education, ecology, and play work together, forming a campus that supports critical thinking, creativity, and meaningful engagement with the environment.