A Delightfully Playful School Of Grass

School kids worldwide are green with envy (we’ll admit it, we are too). The new Public School and Primary (CEIP) Roldan looks to the naked eye like an extreme miniature golf course, completely wrapped in Astroturf.

The delightfully playful green carpet stretches up the walls and onto the angular roof, like a tenacious, climbing ivy. Situated on the plain of Campo de Cartagena, in southern Spain, the school will operate with the ideal of teaching from nature. The brainchild of Spanish based architecture firm Estudio Huma recently completed this extraordinary creative project. Within the grounds of the school, Huma also created a residential complex geared up to handle a the demands of a population influx.

The architectural design of the jointing school uses the basic outline of a home and connects the units together to create a horizontal layout. But, the beauty of the school not only lies in its silhouette, but also it's materiality. The entire structure is covered in turf grass, which was derived from the concept of creating natural body through the architecture.

The horizontal layout allows for easy expansion of the school as the town grows, a growth expected in coming years. Huma decided to create secluded playgrounds for the children by jointing the edges of some of the buildings to use the architecture as a protection mechanism.

The interiors of the facility were also design with minimalism in mind. The classrooms have an industrial feel with pops of green letters and numbers stuck to random walls and floors. Ultimately Huma created an extremely unique and imaginative educational establishment for the children of Roldon.

Photographs By David Frutos