For her graduation project Junran Zhao designed a school which aims to improve the quality of elderly’s life by enhancing their sense of self-archievements through knowlegde sharing with other people. The project is a response to the aging population of the city of Berlin.
Concept drawing
Can you explain your choice of subject?
The original intention of this project is to help and improve the lives of the elderly in Berlin. It has a specific regional focus, which is very local. Therefore, it has a certain reference value in guiding related social issues in Berlin. As a building project that involves age-friendly design, participatory design, and multi-sensory design, it expands the traditional responsibility boundaries of architecture and also has ontological value for the architectural discipline. Likewise, as a school building, it explores the spatial attributes from public to private and matches different needs and types of teaching activities. This is an innovative design for school buildings.
What or who have been your sources of inspiration for your project and can you explain this?
In today’s fast-moving information age, learning is no longer confined to school years—it’s a lifelong process that helps people stay connected to the world around them. For the elderly, education plays a vital role in adapting to changing technologies and societal norms. For example, the rise of new media, which feels second nature to younger generations, can become a barrier for older people, leading to isolation. At the same time, younger people are still learning essential life skills—knowledge that older generations have gained through years of experience. Intergenerational knowledge exchange allows both age groups to learn from each other, fostering mutual understanding and helping older adults remain actively integrated within their communities.
Soundscape at rainy days
State and describe the key moment in your graduation project
According to the publicity and privacy of space, the teaching space is divided into three types: classrooms, in-between space, and indoor gardens. In terms of spatial details, the teaching space adopts age-appropriate design, multi-sensory design, and participatory design. In terms of institutional design at the elderly school, a credit system is adopted where people can exchange credits for their own class hours, thus continuing to choose their preferred courses.
Regarding spatial design, the school has three main indoor gardens, which also help the elderly to orient themselves in this rectangular space. The first indoor garden, the “Green Hall,” is a sensory garden composed of bamboo, with the sound of dripping water, rustling leaves, visual effects of green plants, and the fragrance of flowers. The second indoor garden, the “Blue Hall,” is surrounded by exhibits and extends from the ground floor to the third floor via a ramp, allowing people to stroll from the lake surface to the top floor while enjoying the exhibits and scenery. The third indoor garden, the “Orange Hall,” is a reading garden with large steps providing space for communication and reading, while the orange carpet makes the elderly feel warm and comfortable.
Depending on the theme of the different courses, the interior furniture and furnishings of the classroom space also vary. The classroom space is not monofunctional but multifunctional, including production space, small exhibition space, and spaces for communication and relaxation. The in-between space outside of these areas is more private, including functions such as private reading, psychological counseling, rest, scenery viewing, and credit exchange.
Can you explain what design(ing) means to you?
This elderly school design aligns with my perception of public buildings and architectural complexity. As Venturi posited in “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,” architecture possesses deficiencies, and outstanding architectural works are inevitably contradictory and complex. The complexity and contradiction of buildings are very intuitively reflected in public buildings and building complexes. They will inevitably encounter difficult and complex social problems when serving the city. At this time, they play a role in generating social value and addressing social problems.
What hope / do you want to achieve as a designer in the near and / or the distant future?
In the near future, I hope to continue working on architecture that engages directly with societal needs—especially projects that embrace complexity yet strive for clarity, much like the “more in less” principle that inspired my graduation project. I’m eager to contribute to designs that are not only technically and aesthetically refined but also rooted in empathy, whether that’s through age-inclusive environments, participatory processes, or sensory-rich spaces. Looking further ahead, my ambition is to help reshape how architecture addresses urban and social transformation, especially in contexts undergoing demographic shifts or regeneration. I want to create buildings that are deeply contextual, emotionally resonant, and capable of bridging diverse user groups. Ultimately, I hope my work will contribute to a more thoughtful and human-centered architectural discipline.
Elderly’s one day at school
What could your project mean for practice?
Architectural design should not only have beautiful forms and advanced technologies but also use them to respond to social problems. The elderly school provides another way to face Berlin’s aging population. Elderly people alone at home can participate in various teaching activities in this elderly school, which increases opportunities for social communication. This helps them achieve self-achievement and spend their later years more joyfully. Schools for the elderly assume the social responsibility of caring for the elderly and provide people with lifelong learning opportunities.
From dawn to dusk
Project text
This project is an elderly school in Berlin, which aims to help the elderly enjoy their happy life by enhancing their sense of self-achievement through knowledge sharing with other people. The elderly school provides another way to face the aging population in Berlin. It includes age-friendly design, participatory design, and multi-sensory design, aiming to help the elderly gain a sense of self-achievement through cross-age communication. The elderly school increases the possibility for people to meet and talk, using classrooms, in-between spaces, and gardens to provide formal and random learning and communication opportunities. It also improves the self-satisfaction of the elderly in different aspects. The classroom is a teaching space that provides fixed courses where the elderly can gain a sense of self-achievement when teaching and acquiring knowledge. The in-between space is a space for people to communicate and rest, where random learning opportunities can be triggered. The indoor garden is separated by exhibition shelves, where the elderly carefully maintain the plants, and they will also feel happy in this planting space.
The elderly school focuses on elderly’s all aspects of health, including physical, mental and social health. This project, starting from the perspective of the elderly and delving into local issues in Berlin’s residential areas, responds to architectural themes. Simultaneously, it explores the various interaction possibilities between human bodies, activities, and architectural spaces. It also profoundly explores the multiple possibilities of the interaction between the human body activities and the architectural space. This is exactly what complex projects wanted with their theme “Bodies & Buildings – Berlin.” This project responds to the impact of knowledge-sharing space on the self-satisfaction of the elderly from the urban, architectural, and human scales. On an urban scale, after research on transportation, service facilities, green space, water bodies, and per capita age distribution, it was determined that the surrounding area around Fennpfuhl Lake was the site.
Study space flows throughout the school
The elderly school will float on the lake and blend into the poetic trees and natural environment. The elderly can participate outdoors in fishing and farm courses when the weather is nice and cozy. On the architectural scale, unlike ordinary school designs, teaching spaces occur not only in classrooms but also in gardens and in-between spaces, increasing opportunities for cross-age knowledge exchange. On the human scale, the space design considers issues such as the gradient of the ramp, the rental space for wheelchairs and hearing aids, and the size of the accessible bathroom to facilitate the use of the elderly and other groups (including children).
Name:
Junran Zhao
e-mail
Start graduation:
September 2023
End graduation:
Juli 2024
Education:
Technische Universiteit Delft
