Kisbalázs Nursery, Gödöllő

Architects: András Vikár, István Lukács
Text: Mária Tatai
Photos: Tamás Török / Topogram

Kisbalázs is a municipal nursery with a capacity for 84 children. The heart of the building is a central space called „Ringató” („rocking”), a larger-size lobby which is suited for community activities and is connected by wide openings to the surrounding wrap-around corridor and thus to the other spaces of the building. Its basic shape is almost square, its ceiling is gently sloping with a scalloped roof and overhead skylights in the centre. Surrounding it, arranged in an orderly but not rigid design, are the staff units, organised on three sides around the corners, and a fourth block of office plus utility and mechanical rooms. The units for children’s activities, consisting of two or three rooms, each have a small children’s washroom/bathing area, accessible from the wrap-around corridors and from the rooms themselves. It is an ideal functional layout, well functioning and clear. In what is essentially a nine-room complex, the central lobby is connected by a cloister and eight smaller adjoining „cubic” rooms.
Each of these is roofed with a tent-shaped roof, with overhead skylight windows at the top of each to let in natural light, but the also receive plenty of light from the sides through large, undivided window openings, mostly from the floor level. Light pours in from across the house flooding the space. The ceilings of the activity rooms are also tent-shaped, and these pyramids are not even centrally symmetrical, so that they do not only differ in orientation and lighting, but also the interior shape of each nursery room is a unique one, each having a deck of their own.

Client: Municipality of Gödöllő
General planning: Vikár and Lukács Architects
Lead architects: András Vikár, István Lukács
Architects: Tamás Bencsik, Árpád Gál, Ádám Szekér, Christopher Kovács, Fanni Salamin, Evelin Kovács, Patrícia Tisóczki
Interiors: Erika Ignácz
Framework: Péter Hegedűs
HVAC: János Bukovics – G&B Plan
Building construction: Richárd Reisch – FRT-Raszter
Electrical engineering: Ferenc Kelemen – Kelevill
Landscape: Dominka Tihanyi – Újirány Landscape Architects
Fire protection: Zsolt Fenyvesi – F.S.Z. Engineering
Acoustics, environment protection: Gusztáv Józsa – Józsa and Co. 2000
Roads: Attila Tóth – TP-Terv Engineering
Accessibility: András Pandula – NT Control
Kitchen technology: András Gauland – Teco-Gasztro