Multisensory architecture: School for the blind and visually impaired

Authors’ Comment

How can a space be understood and remembered when sight is no longer the main way of orientation? The project starts from this question and proposes a school where architecture becomes a tool for orientation, learning, and independence.
Located in Vatra Luminoasă, an area with a strong historical connection to the education of blind people, the school aims to continue this identity through a contemporary approach. Accessibility is not treated as a set of solutions added to a conventional building, but as a starting point for the entire project, based on the different ways blind and visually impaired children perceive space.
Without relying mainly on visual information, orientation is built through a combination of sound, touch, texture, light, smell, movement, and memory. These elements become design tools. Circulation routes are clear and continuous, materials and textures mark changes between different areas, while variations in light, acoustics, and scale create landmarks that help children recognize and remember spaces.
The project begins with a compact volume, which is then fragmented into several smaller buildings with different scales and identities. This fragmentation brings the architecture closer to the scale of a child and makes the school easier to understand. The volumes are connected through continuous circulation, making movement more intuitive and reducing situations in which users may lose their sense of orientation.
Between the volumes, a sequence of sensory courtyards is created, alternating between mineral and planted spaces. They bring light and vegetation into the school, while also acting as orientation points. Each courtyard has its own character through materials, vegetation, sound, and atmosphere, helping children build a mental map of the school. In this way, intermediate spaces are not simply areas of passage, but become places for orientation, interaction, play, and learning.
The program goes beyond that of a conventional school. Alongside classrooms, it includes spaces for autonomy and orientation training, workshops, didactic kitchens, music rooms, multisensory rooms, hydrotherapy, and physical activities. Learning therefore continues outside the classroom through practical experiences, movement, and direct exploration of space.
The materiality follows the same approach: tactile surfaces, natural materials, changes in texture, and controlled light contribute both to the calm atmosphere of the school and to orientation. The reinforced concrete structure creates a clear rhythm throughout the building while allowing the flexibility required by its different functions.
Ultimately, the project proposes a school where the child is not expected to adapt to the building; instead, the architecture adapts to the way the child perceives and understands the world. Space becomes not only the setting for education, but an active part of the process through which children learn to navigate, explore, and become independent.