Calvinist Kindergartens, Gyömrő, Dunaharaszti, Mándok

Architect: Dezső Ekler
Text: Tamás Kiss
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

In the shadow of the pandemic, several plans for Calvinist kindergartens were completed almost simultaneously in Dezső Ekler’s office to be built by autumn 2022. The kindergartens planned for various municipalities in the country are just like brothers and sisters. Their functions and formative characteristics, such as the grey sheet-metal roof, gable-roof, bright cubes, appear identical, but their ‘home-grown’ features have been shaped into a specific face by local requirements and needs. The design programme, the number of classrooms and the context of the building plots were fundamental in identifying the buildings’ characteristics. In Gyömrő, we can see a basic type of the three buildings. While here we can observe a long, compact volume with a lower pitch and a gable roof, in Dunaharaszti the compact character has been maintained with two gable-roofed cubes connected by a flat-roofed neck. Of the three buildings, the kindergarten in Mándok also shows a certain disciplined whimsy, with the roof ridge now lying perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the house built on a narrow plot: two gabled volumes have been connected. The long lateral façade follows the contours of the tapering site boundary and playfully jumps in and out, sometimes creating a porch-like transitional space delimited by a perforated shell, or a small courtyard enclosed by building sections. The buildings of the kindergartens convey a certain sense of duality: they give an impression of security by suggesting strict regulation, while at the same time curves, curved cubes and volumes fill the restrained spaces with a constant playful buzz.

Lead architect: Dezső Ekler
Architects: Balázs Győri, Bálint Köves
Structure: István Kovács – Kovács and Kovács Studio
Framework: Orsolya Dudinszky – Dudinszky Architects
HVAC: Zoltán Sor  – PhQ Engineers
Electrical engineering: Ilona Nyári – Libella 21
Garden: Hajnalka HerrFire protection: Levente Szöllősi – Tűzinfó.hu+ÚT-IRÁNY Bt.
Geodesy: Zoltán Jeles Jr – Jeles Geodesy, Albert Kiss – Talppont
Soil mechanics: Gyula Németh – VIZITERV ENVIRON, Péter Schell – GEOPLAN
Public utilitites: Miklós Bartha – Bartherv, János Grőb – Pest-Terv
Accessibility: Judit Horváthné Korinek
Kicthen technology: Tibor Kauser – LIGET Architecture and Engineering