Winner: Architecture project of the year 2023 and civic project of the year 2023. Trace Architecture Office (TAO) has conceptualised and developed the Haikou Jiangdong Huandao Experimental School in Haikou City, China.

Haikou Jiangdong Huandao Experimental School is TAO's second school project in Haikou and is another practical exploration of educational architecture and locality.

This project includes a 48-class high school and student dormitory and an 18-class kindergarten, with a total land area of 60,000 square metres and a total construction area of 64,700 square metres.

The design treats the campus as a miniature pastoral city, responding to the natural environment of the surrounding site in an organic form.

"The building integrates with the surrounding pastoral fields, green spaces, rivers, wetlands and oceans to jointly build an organic whole," told TAO. "At the same time, the free curves and strong colours also echo students' unique innocence and childlike interest."

Judges comments: "The project’s spatial variety provides a fun and open forum for learning while promoting social interconnectivity among the community. It breaks away from the traditional rigidity of the education institutional typology in China and opens up new possibilities for the future."

Studio: Trace Architecture Office (TAO)
Project: Haikou Jiangdong Huandao Experimental School