Massimo Adiansi: Nursery and pre-school

The design was incorporated into the wing of an old restructured farmhouse and had to be developed around the strongly distinctive original structure. The ground floor houses the nursery and the service areas (kitchen, staff cloakroom and waiting room), while the three sections of the pre-school are on the first floor. This is a bilingual nursery (Italian and English); the client required a structure adapted - both in the layout and appearance - to its specific teaching methods. The outside area, for example, has not been designed as a playground, but instead as a genuine English garden.

The nursery has been designed as a single open plan space which can be broken up using large table games. These have been expressly designed for the areas, and are used to sub-divide them depending on the type of activity in progress (motor games, static games or relaxation).

The pre-school, in contrast, has been designed around a large central space for the motor activities that are emphasised in the sections for teaching and table work. There is also an art area for creative activities, a library and a room for sensory discovery and experience.

Central to the design is the colour scheme: this has created an environment that is as neutral as possible but one embellished with touches of colour chosen specifically on the basis of the most up-to-date theories. The same is true of the lighting system: in the nursery, this is made up of large discs of different widths (similar to flying saucers), while in the pre-school there is a series of neon tubes set at different angles 300cm above floor level (like a kind of illuminated game of pick-up sticks).
Massimo Adiansi

Massimo Adiansi was born in Cremona in 1974 and graduated in architecture from Milan Polytechnic in 2000. After a period working with a range of studios, he began his own in 2006 in Brescia. Since 2008, he has also worked in Greece, maintaining a small studio in Athens. Main works: BMW dealership in Verona (2006), MINI showroom in Verona (2006), Maggi 9 office block in Brescia (2007), two sea villas on the island of Koufonissi in Greece (under construction), nursery and pre-school in Brescia (2009).

Little England nursery and pre-school
Collebeato, Brescia
Architect: Massimo Adiansi
Client: Kidspace s.r.l.
Surface area: 880 sf (inside) and 450 sf (outside)
Cost: € 380,000
Construction: February - August 2009