Buildner is proud to announce the results of the second edition of the Kinderspace: Architecture for Children’s Development competition—a global call for visionary ideas that reimagine early childhood education spaces.
Following the success of the inaugural competition, this year’s challenge once again invited architects and designers to explore how architecture can better support young learners’ creativity, growth, and well-being. Participants were encouraged to design kindergartens that move beyond conventional classroom layouts, integrating nature, flexibility, and sensory-rich environments in a culturally responsive context of their own choosing.
The competition received proposals from around the world, each reflecting unique approaches to nurturing development through design. Submissions were reviewed by an accomplished international jury of architects, educators, and designers with experience in childhood learning environments. The top entries stood out for their originality, sensitivity, and architectural clarity—each presenting inspiring alternatives to traditional educational models. Winning designs emphasized ecological responsibility, adaptive spatial thinking, and a child-centered philosophy that embraces play, exploration, and emotional connection.
First prize was awarded to Kenneth Anggara, Marco Kuo, and Emma Aleah Garm-Straker (UK) for Nest, a kindergarten embedded in the forested landscape of Canada, shaped by the metaphor of protection and openness. Second prize went to Longyi Zhou (Netherlands) for Outside-In, a flexible and climate-conscious project that blurs the line between classroom and natural world. Third prize was awarded to Zihe Chen and Thomas Doan (Australia) for Playful Past, which transforms an industrial heritage site into a layered, story-driven learning campus. The student award went to Silvia-Elena Maxim (Romania) for Brick Bond, a culturally grounded kindergarten that strengthens community through familiar forms and spatial continuity. Margaret Graham Brandow and Abraham Cordell Silvers (USA) received the sustainability award for their fire-resilient, nature-integrated concept in California.
Entrants were encouraged to propose designs for a theoretical site of their choosing, offering the opportunity to respond to local cultures, climates, and educational values. Key design criteria included the integration of natural materials, adaptive spatial strategies, access to daylight and greenery, and a thoughtful approach to sensory engagement.
An accomplished jury comprising architects, educators, and designers with project experience in childcare environments reviewed the submissions, recognizing projects that demonstrated originality, empathy, and a strong architectural vision.
Buildner extends its appreciation to all who participated for their dedication to rethinking educational design. We congratulate the winning teams for their exceptional proposals and remain inspired by the continued evolution of early learning environments through architecture.
1st Place
Nest
Kenneth Anggara, Marco Kuo, Emma Aleah Garm-Straker
United Kingdom
“We join architecture competitions as a way to reconnect through shared curiosity and challenges. Though we are geographically dispersed, competitions offer a space where our values rooted in sustainability, social responsibility, public engagement, and the intersection of the built and unbuilt can actively converge. They allow us to explore and test ideas outside of conventional practice, experiment with new tools and methods, and collaborate freely across disciplines. For us, idea competitions are about testing the edges of architecture—creating work that is speculative yet deeply rooted in the stories of place and people.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Nest proposes a kindergarten and learning center rooted in the landscape of Gabriola Island, Canada. The design draws on the metaphor of a nest—protective yet open—creating a gently curved building that follows the site’s natural contours and opens progressively to the surrounding forest. Learning spaces are arranged by age in a linear sequence, moving from enclosed and nurturing toward open, outward-looking areas, reflecting a pedagogical model of growing independence. Architecture and landscape are interwoven through open thresholds, shared gardens, and timber-framed corridors, encouraging fluid movement between interior and exterior. The project embraces Passive House principles and local material sourcing, with a strong focus on daylighting, thermal efficiency, and wood-based construction. Community resilience and ecological stewardship are framed not as added features, but as foundational to the architecture’s spatial and educational logic.
2nd Place
Outside-In: ecological thinking of children, climate & architecture
Longyi Zhou
Netherlands
JURY FEEDBACK summary
Outside-In proposes a kindergarten set at the border of city and nature in Brussels, aiming to connect children with climate and ecology through both program and architecture. The design embeds itself within a brownfield edge condition, transforming a low-impact intervention site into a dynamic learning environment. Through a flexible, climate-responsive architectural language, it creates a robust but gentle response to the pedagogical and environmental context. It explores the typology of a corridor-less school to offer more transitional and adaptable spatial experiences for children, merging indoor-outdoor boundaries with clever seasonal and sectional strategies. Materials, construction logic, and program organization all support the project’s ambition to reduce ecological footprint while enriching sensory and social experiences.
3rd Place
PLAYFUL PAST
Zihe Chen, Thomas Doan
Australia
“We see architecture competitions as an opportunity to step outside the usual boundaries of practice and explore ideas more freely. Competitions give us space to test new concepts, challenge ourselves creatively, and build on our personal interests in design. This competition, in particular, allowed us to collaborate across our different backgrounds, combining Zi’s focus on digital design with Thomas’s new interest in landscape public spaces. It was a valuable chance to learn from each other and develop a project that brings both of our strengths together.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Playful Past reframes an industrial heritage site as a vibrant, child-focused campus through strategies of adaptive reuse, low-carbon construction, and landscape integration. The design is rooted in a rich contextual narrative, emphasizing storytelling, nature play, and historic connectivity. A clear massing strategy derived from an existing structural grid allows the intervention to feel both grounded and responsive, while the architectural language draws from village and cottage typologies. The visual material communicates how the proposal repurposes existing structures, retains heritage materials, and intersperses new timber and corrugated metal volumes. Renderings are immersive and engaging, showing a variety of child-centered spatial experiences while maintaining coherence in materiality, tone, and structure. This is a thoughtful, multi-layered project that blends pedagogical intent with a strong sense of place.
Buildner Student Award
Brick Bond
Silvia-Elena Maxim
Romania
“This is a new experience for me, but I chose to participate in this competition to step out of my comfort zone. The theme of my project is personal, it tells my story and the story of my neighborhood. I wanted to look where no one else would, in a forgotten place, and find value and strength in memory, history, and identity.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
Brick Bond reinterprets the collective memory of a working-class neighborhood in Timișoara through a contemporary educational and community center. The architecture draws on the vernacular of local brick construction, combining gabled forms, perforated masonry, and domestic-scaled elements to create a civic space that feels familiar yet distinct. The design is structured around a linear internal “street,” linking programmatic zones such as a kindergarten, multipurpose hall, and outdoor gathering areas. Emphasis is placed on reconnecting the community through everyday rituals, storytelling, and proximity, with playful architectural gestures that evoke the memory of traditional workshops and public courtyards. Text and diagrams emphasize the cultural importance of spatial continuity, intergenerational exchange, and the reactivation of public space within a fragmented urban fabric.
Buildner Sustainability Award
Growing Confident
Margaret Graham Brandow, Abraham Cordell Silvers
United States
“We participate in architecture competitions because they offer a unique outlet to express our ideas with fewer limitations than academic or professional settings. This quality is both an opportunity and a challenge. By removing the often provided guidelines, we as students must draw our own boundaries, as architects do in the professional setting. Each and every competition becomes an opportunity to push the limits of our graphic and conceptual abilities, ensuring that every project we submit represents the best version of what we can create at that moment. Competitions push us to think critically, experiment boldly, and grow as designers. The process itself and what we learn along the way often proves more valuable than the outcome.”
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JURY FEEDBACK summary
This project reimagines a kindergarten as a regenerative, fire-resilient environment rooted in community healing and connection to nature. Situated in Altadena, California—an area impacted by wildfire—the design is organized around a series of branching classroom structures that open outward into the surrounding landscape rather than enclosing a courtyard. These structures promote interaction across age groups and dissolve rigid academic boundaries through shared sleeping porches and communal spaces. A distinct emphasis is placed on honoring regional history and landscape typologies, with the site divided into zones reflecting Californian biomes. Passive design strategies, material choices referencing Craftsman architecture, and flexible learning environments all reflect a sensitive and adaptive response to the region’s ecological and social conditions.
HONORABLE MENTION
Seasoning
Łukasz Michał Danilczuk, Krystian Grzegorz Kubat, Ewa Helena Maniak, Zofia Zuzanna Zwijacz
Poland
“We see architecture competitions as a fantastic way to step out of our comfort zones and take on unique, thought-provoking challenges. They allow us to explore different ideas, cultures, and perspectives. Most importantly, they’re a space for creative freedom and self-expression.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Unscripted
Rune Junior Rui-Xin Li, Tina Meng Ting Li
Sweden
“Competitions like this allow us to step outside the constraints of our daily client-driven work and push the boundaries of what architecture can be. They provide a space for experimentation and clarity, where we can challenge our own assumptions, test ideas, and engage in a global dialogue with peers. It’s a creative reset and an opportunity to deepen our values through design.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Twisted Kinderspace
Alexander Mpaltatzis, Florian Hofmann
Germany
“We take part in competitions to tackle new challenges together and to develop fresh ideas. It’s a chance to create something that hasn’t been done before and to experiment with innovative techniques that often don’t get enough attention in our everyday professional work.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Rooted Beginnings : A Flexible, Prefabricated Kindergarten for Québec’s Children
Pierre-Charles Gauthier
Canada
“Épigraphe participates in architecture competitions to share our ideas and ambitions for the future we are working to build. They provide a creative platform that allows us to dream more freely of places that have yet to exist. Competitions allow us to challenge preconceived notions of how our built and natural environment’s function, and what they should feel and look like. They allow us to improve our methods of visual communication, creating immersive media that illustrates atmospheres and social interactions, inviting others to imagine themselves in the worlds we aspire to live in.”
HONORABLE MENTION
Tangram
Jihoon Kim, Yun Jeong Han, Boseul Seo Ka Heun Hyun
United States
“Architecture competitions offer a chance to step away from everyday constraints and explore bold ideas. They allow us to pursue what matters to us, experiment freely, and transform casual conversations into concrete design proposals. More than a final product, they are about thinking critically, collaborating closely, and discovering a clearer design voice through the process.”
HONORABLE MENTION
INTERSTICES
Ege Ediger, Deniz Eskicirak, Berke Karadeni̇z
Italy
“I participated in this competition because of its unusual blend of pragmatic and conceptual requirements, in a region with a rich history of climate adaptation that had the potential to positively inform the design.”
SHORTLISTED PROJECTS
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