Snegiri Private School in West Moscow

Gint-M has completed the Snegiri private school project on Minskaya Street in West Moscow. Gint-M has performed an entire range of general construction and engineering works, with Martela being in charge of architecture and design.

Snegiri private school – one of the most sophisticated in Russia projects from engineering and innovative perspectives – was brought to fruition for half a year. “The general contractor’s team entered the site in January and already in July the major repair was over. The main objective was creating maximally functional, adaptive and aesthetic space on a relatively small floor area of 3,000 sq. m, where both students and teachers might be safe and comfortable working productively and with inspiration, not to mention “smart” life support systems that would make spatial management easy and intuitive,” says Alexander Gulin, Executive Director of Snegiri Private School, commenting on the project.

The result is a project where one can control ventilation and air-conditioning systems from one remote unit, along with adjusting the indoor air makeup and temperature, lighting scenarios, etc. The project features 16 information systems: besides those mentioned above, these are also security systems (ACS cameras with fingerprints, firefighting systems and suchlike), local cable networks and IP telephony, PA and recess bells. What’s more, a large installation with soaring bullfinches and balls that can also be distantly controlled and rearranged has been created in the main lobby. It’s important to note that all information systems are interconnected and function effectively.

The Scandinavian design concept for educational institutions was used: you see plenty of open space here, an abundance of glass partitions ensuring good visibility of all premises and at the same time making the interior visually lighter. Children aged 6 to 10 are easily distracted during their studies. To address this issue, classrooms are outfitted with walls from switchable glass that can be darkened from the control panel; thus, the teacher may isolate a classroom from peripheral distractions.

There are many specialized classrooms, such as an arts class with a potter’s wheel, burning kiln and easels. Here children get acquainted with arts & crafts. A hi-tech class has everything necessary for robotics, prototyping, programming and Lego design studies, even a printer where you can “print out” all kind of projections and imagery. There is also a separate research space with a water tank, phyto wall and hydroponic cropping. Thus, kids may get hands-on knowledge of the environment and learn the fundamentals of nature sciences like physics and chemistry. Also represented in the project is a small gym for team sports with a 3D fitness facility instrumental in teaching soft skills and the art of human interaction.

“Our special pride is a large auditorium originally designed as a theatre, though later this concept was rethought. Given the scarcity of rooms, it was decided to swap the “theatre” concept for a more multifunctional one. Now this auditorium is used both for sports and for drama shows,” says Business Development Director of Gint-M Artem Panteleev. “Whenever a theatre stage needs to be transformed into a gym, a large 4-meter screen and sound equipment are covered with automatic curtains; what’s more, a big net to protect the screen from ball hits is dropped from above.The stage itself is demountable: it takes a couple of hours to reequip a gym into a theatre stage with 100 spectators accommodated on comfortable seats.”

An open information and library space is also worth mentioning: it is reminiscent of some sort of children’s co-working and a teachers’ room which is not only home to the workstations of all teachers, but also a kitchen and space with an interactive panel where teachers can discuss their tasks, in addition to a lounge zone featuring a spacious sofa where they can sit at a cup of coffee and get relaxed.

“We thank Martela which designed a comfortable, trendy and effective space in the style of Scandinavian hi-tech, and we thank building contractor Gint-M that delivered this project incredibly fast, with uncompromising quality, in addition to suggesting a number of meaningful ideas of which many have materialized in this school building,” says Mr. Gulin.

PRIVATE SCHOOL «Snegiri»

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