Ayb School, a private educational complex in Yerevan, Armenia, opened in 2011 by the Ayb Educational Foundation. The school, named after the first letter of the Armenian alphabet Ayb, is one progressive teaching institution among a majority of more traditional schools in Armenia. When the school required a new hybrid elementary/middle school building, it tasked Yerevan-based Storaket Architectural Studio with designing a modern building that would support its learning and teaching culture.
The new building – called “Ayb C” – is the third on the Ayb school campus, accommodating 240 students across 13,780 square feet, and is a bright departure from the surrounding architecture and interiors. In an officeinsight interview, Storaket cofounder Meroujan Minassian discussed the design process, the architectural culture and landscape of Armenia, and building learning spaces for a new generation of Armenians.
The new Ayb School is an example of what school can be in Armenia, moving away from traditional education spaces and embracing modern teaching and learning concepts that happen in more interactive, abstract, open environments.
“Many schools in Armenia are very good, but also very traditional, and they are often boring environments for students,” said Mr. Minassian. “We wanted to create a modern, more interactive space for the new generation of Armenian people coming of age.”
“The curriculum at Ayb is a little more flexible than at many other schools. At the core of the way they teach is the idea that you play to learn and learn to play. One of the primary things the teachers wanted was flexibility – to be able to easily move and completely rearrange classrooms and other learning spaces.”
“We centered on the idea of playing with corridors – with the concept of the corridors of the school being like a street, and of the classrooms and other spaces being like the buildings. This idea of living on a street in a community matched well with the experience we were trying to create.”
A main corridor runs through each of the four levels of the building, with classrooms and other open, interactive learning environments lining the corridor.
“We’ve done a lot of work in education, and one of the most important lessons learned is that common spaces are more useful for kids sharing and interacting than a traditional classroom is,” Mr. Minassian said. “Our education system is changing, and those open common spaces are just as important as the traditional classroom with four walls and a door.”
From Ayb School project notes: “Just as in the first two buildings, the C building’s architectural philosophy lies in creating an open and collaborative educational environment that is multifunctional and allows for learning to take place in multiple ways.
“The building’s first floor integrates a completely open flow with an amphitheatre that also facilitates entry to the workshops in the basement. With the use of hidden openings and walkways the interior of the first floor is connected to the landscape surrounding the exterior of the building. This allows easy access to the outside and gives students the opportunity to leave the building and commune with nature. The building’s shell visually supports a large, white block form that houses the second and third floors.
“Ayb C is very much in harmony with the other two school buildings on campus. Everything relating to the educational process, such as classrooms, is situated on the upper floors and social areas like the hall and cafeteria are positioned on the lower floor, just as in the other two buildings. This creates a perception that the buildings have the same organizational structure despite externally having substantial differences.”
The new school’s underground level houses various workshops, including an arts and crafts studio, a dance studio, technical rooms, and an experimental music hub. In addition to these spaces, the school has a sports hall, game and recreation zones, a library, and a glass-enclosed amphitheater.
“One of the most effective spaces in the schools we’ve designed is the amphitheater space,” said Mr. Minassian. “When it’s not formally being used, students are coming there to hang out and socialize. It’s a perfect gathering point for both small and large groups, and so we began putting this amphitheater space near the core of the design.”
Storaket worked through the design process in complete rhythm with the surrounding landscape and with environmental goals in mind.
“The landscape dictates a lot here,” said Mr. Minassian. “Armenia is an earthquake zone, so structurally, we need to get to the base, the safest layer of earth. But, we also wanted to create daylight.”
From project notes: “Despite the basement being submerged four meters below the surface of the ground, the rooms have access to natural light. The boundaries of the excavation go far beyond the contours of the building, forming a free perimeter for walking and going out into the yard. This creates a green roof on a portion of the building.”
The building is outfitted with dynamic solar panels that can move in relation to the sun, into positions that shield from the sun when the sun is strong, and back to positions that attract light when the sun is not as strong.
From project notes: “The Ayb C building is filled with technological solutions to make the learning process as easy and seamless as possible. The structure was developed with the objective of energy efficiency and includes an energy-efficient air conditioning system. On the southern facade, solar panels are mounted on the external wall. A proprietary technology developed by our team uses sensors to automatically position the solar panels where the sun’s rays are most abundant. A system for automatically dimming windows, in the event of excess light, has been developed and implemented.”
The Ayb School presented the Storaket team with the challenge of designing and collaborating on a modern, unconventional building with contractors and construction teams that aren’t familiar with alternative ways of working with materials and working with unusual materials. From the project notes: “The decoration of the premises does not incorporate plaster, and paint is kept to a minimum. The walls are largely untouched exposing the concrete and have been treated with a water repellent coating. All wiring and communication engineering is exposed and a low-key color scheme is used throughout the building.”
Added Mr. Minassian, “Putting in exposed concrete walls as a finished material is more common in the U.S. and in Europe, but it’s something very new for Armenian contractors, so the supervisory stage was more involved and more complicated. We were actually involved in the construction phases.”
The Storaket design team used Armenia’s native tuff stone in a similarly unconventional form.
“The way we designed it was untraditional in terms of how contractors are used to working with it, so we had to show them exactly how to do what we wanted.”
For those curious about “tuff stone”, the material is covered well in a feature published in Smithsonian Magazine.
In the feature, titled “How Ancient Volcanoes Created Armenia’s Pink City,” author Jennifer Billock writes: “As you approach the Armenian capital of Yerevan, you can look up and see Mount Ararat towering in the distance, casting its shadow on a city shrouded in pink. Yerevan has come to be known as Armenia’s Pink City for exactly this view: its Soviet-era buildings constructed out of pink stones from the surrounding landscape. The color is brightest at sunrise and sunset, and changes throughout the day based on where the sun hits it…Yerevan’s unique building stone is actually lava rock, though not the typical black hue found in far-flung destinations like Iceland and Hawaii; rather, this lava rock bears various shades of pink, ranging from light pastels to bright with a hint of orange. Scientifically, it’s known as tuff, a rock made of compacted volcanic ash that was ejected from a vent during an eruption. Though a similar rock type can be found in pockets in Turkey and parts of the U.S. southwest, pink tuff is rare outside of the region and Yerevan is the only major city built out of this stone.”
“Armenia has very limited natural resources and materials, but we try to use the local materials – what we have right here in Armenia,” said Mr. Minassian. “It’s not as in Europe or the U.S., where you can pick up a phone and order whatever material you need. We want to show students that anyone can create something new and modern, something out of the box, from the things around you.”
Ayb School is Storaket’s intention to communicate a bigger message in Armenia through design.
“‘Storaket’ translates to ‘comma’ in Armenian,” said Mr. Minassian. “It’s a way of saying we want to put the comma, and continue on – pushing to new things. We always want to send the message that you can go further, that you can make something useful and modern of the existing things. With this project, we take this message a step further.”
