MAD's first project in Japan, Clover House, was completed and put into use in April this year after nearly a year of construction.

Clover House is a family-run children's education institution located in Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. In order to provide educational services to more children in the community, the kindergarten operator decided to demolish the home where the family had lived for many years and build a new kindergarten on the original plot. Regarding this request, MAD founding partner Ma Yansong said: "I think it is important to create a family atmosphere for this kindergarten, so we decided not to build a new building directly, but to retain the wooden structure of the original building, so that it becomes part of the memory and soul of the new space."

MAD's design retains the main wooden structure of the original house and adds a white "tent shell" on the outside, forming a futuristic, open and enclosed family-scale space, so that children can learn and grow in this place with the past, present and future.

The predecessor of the building is a traditional Japanese double-layer all-wood structure prefabricated finished house like the surrounding houses. MAD's design retains and reinforces the wooden columns and pitched roof wooden frame of the original house, making it part of the new building. This design fully interprets the emotional appeal of the space users: on the one hand, it expresses the owner's respect for the family-like emotions brought by the house in the past, and on the other hand, it also gives children the opportunity to touch this mark that carries the memory of the community. On the other side of the new building is a newly built three-story space connected to the old wooden structure, with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, studio, etc., for the daytime operation of the kindergarten and the residence of the kindergarten operator and his family.

MAD designed a new white asphalt "tent shell" outside the main wooden structure, which wraps the old wooden structure inside like a piece of cloth, like a "white castle" full of abstract futuristic sense. The overall pure but innocent and lively appearance of the "castle" creates a sharp contrast with the surrounding traditional houses, and sets off the rural rice fields and people passing by, which is light and bright but not abrupt.

The entrance at the corner of the street is like the entrance to a cave, leading to a magical unknown space, waiting for curious children to enter and explore. From the second floor, children can slide back to the small courtyard on the first floor, just like returning to reality after the end of a fantasy adventure. This will be the most precious childhood memory for children.

The new "tent shell" and the old wooden structure create an interesting interior space. The first and second floors of the building are places for children to study and play daily. With natural light pouring into the room through the roof skylight and surrounding windows, the entire space is bright and transparent, adding a bit of intimacy and warmth to the children's daily interactions. The "gap" between the curved surface of the shell and the internal structure also forms interesting "corners": the "corner" at the top has become a small library, and the long row of wooden benches is a book storage space. Some "corners" that only children can climb to have become their secret paradise: they can perform the dramas that children enjoy here, or they can observe the outside world through the skylight and travel in the vast world of imagination.

This building, which alternates between old and new, always tells the operators, children, even neighbors and the entire community about the original intention of Clover House: the warm and sincere emotional atmosphere like a family, and the free imagination and development of children's future growth. The sharp contrast and various uncertainties of the space are not in a hurry to make any premises and assumptions for the children, but only try to provide them with free space to stretch their imagination. Perhaps in such collisions and inspirations, children will begin to find their own position in the process of growing up.

Clover House
Okazaki City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan

Type: Kindergarten, Residential
Site area: 283.28 square meters
Occupied area: 133.76 square meters
Total building area: 299.63 square meters

Leading architects: Ma Yansong, Hayano Yosuke, Dang Qun
Design team: Yonezu Kosuke, Lee Yu-hwan, Fujino Daiki, Julian Sattler, Davide Signorato

Owner: Nara Kentaro, Nara Tamaki
Constructor: Kira Construction INC
Structural engineer: Nagai Takuo
Photography: Fuji Koji, Dan Honda