Snapshot: Family Box offers Beijing tots and their parents a futurist fun house of learning designed by SAKO Architects intended to expand imaginations and perpetuate play.

Based on the UK's model for early education, Family Box features a multitude of playscapes, pools, and classes all presented in English to enrich the lives of Beijing's littlest elite. SAKO Architects designed the facility with bright colors and undulating walls and doorways, certain to amaze and engage tiny intellects.

The first floor boasts three swimming pools complete with a UK certified swimming coach, and a large reception area, each area featuring the circular wall cutouts found throughout the building. The splashes of color within each swiss cheese window are cartoonish and clever - at once wondrous and wacky to little eyes, and composed and clean to the grown ups.

The second and third floors house fifteen separate classrooms and activity areas like the soft playground, a sandpit, and pint sized play supermarket. Free form curved openings and slanted walls touch on a Flintstones Bedrock City vibe, but Family Box stays firmly planted in a modernist time zone with it's pristine white walls and acoustics-minded atrium.

SAKO simply and sweetly designed a space with massive kid appeal and a clean, minimalist sensibility. The success of this tricky combination encourages orderly yet organic play and learning, and creates a comfort level for children and parents that can allow each to utilize Family Box to the fullest.

Photography courtesy of SAKO Architects