The outdoor space of the Auhof day-care building is conceived as a space in which the child does not merely act, but inscribes itself into the world. It is not a backdrop but a counterpart: a fabric of material, vegetation and topography that enables experience and holds memory. The child does not look at the world from the outside. It is part of it and carries it within.

From this stance emerges an open space conceived as a space of possibilities: open enough for appropriation, precise enough to provide orientation. A vegetated fringe wraps around the building, forming a differentiated continuum between inside and outside, between school, neighbourhood and landscape. Within it, spatial situations condense as a consequence of constellation, movement and time.

The design follows the tension between heaviness and lightness. Ground, topography and materiality provide footing, resistance and anchorage. They make it possible to fall, to stand, to locate oneself. At the same time, vegetation, light and movement open up a lightness that allows for social negotiation and free use. The space is neither fixed nor arbitrary. It comes into being through use.

The open spaces are laid out as a sequence of distinct situations: dense, sheltering areas for retreat and focused play, open zones for shared use, and transitions that open up towards the neighbourhood. The existing pupils’ garden next to the school buildings is taken up and extended. The new gardens complement it, and together they form a coherent ecological and educational system.

Different plant communities, from ruderal areas and herbaceous perennial stands to dense woody edges, form a multi-layered mosaic that promotes biodiversity and helps regulate the climate. Rainwater is retained, guided and made tangible within the open space. This gives rise to processes that are not only functional but perceptible to the senses: growth, change, the seasons.

The paths are part of this system. Unsealed, permeable surfaces act as mediating layers between the built and the grown world. They are both robust and restrained, and they give precedence to the vegetation.

The outdoor space thus becomes a sentient space: a space that responds to use, allows traces and takes in memories. Here, learning and playing are not separate but part of a continuous process of appropriation.

The result is an open space that does more than meet the requirements. It articulates a stance: a landscape that takes the child seriously as a physical, social and learning being in the world.