Since 2001, more than 370,000 rural schools in China have closed. Each closure erases daily rituals, social cohesion, and spatial identity. This project reimagines an abandoned primary school in Hongguang Village, Zunyi, Guizhou as a senior nursery for the people who once studied there as children.
Referencing Ilya Kabakov’s School No. 6,and the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the building takes on the role of the Piper—provoking, luring, and awakening. The story reveals a state of liminality as children become adults and it shows the dilemmas the piper is facing. The piper could be an evoker and have this capability to raise the awareness of the children or the rats but he is weak in the adult world without power, resources and other companions. The Architecture could be an approach that embraces conflict, memory, and playfulness to provoke awakening and resist control. It challenges the viewer to see architecture not as a passive structure, but as an active force of creativity, disruption, and revelation — like the piper. Or the music that lures you. Escape can also be a return.
The design employs a dreamcore aesthetic, integrating fragments of the original modernist building with new insertions. Each room’s colors, furniture arrangement, and atmosphere connect with the journey of the story. In the end, the terrace garden could be an escape, but also a return. Physical models and detail studies. Close‑ups.
Kids Return.
Due to centralized education reforms and urban migration, more than 370,000 rural schools in China have closed since 2001. Each closure erases daily rituals, social cohesion, and spatial identity. This thesis reimagines one such school in Hongguang Village, Zunyi, Guizhou—abandoned after only nine years of use—as a senior nursery for the very people who once studied there as children.
The project draws from Ilya Kabakov’s School No. 6, which renders memory through fragmented space, and from the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, where children vanish to an unseen destination. Here, the architecture itself becomes the Piper—provoking, luring, and awakening. Escape can also be a return; disappearance becomes transformation.
The design employs a dreamcore aesthetic, integrating fragments of the original modernist building with new insertions. Existing classrooms are reconfigured into a library, reception, café, and courtyard. The upper floors host an auditorium, music and dance rooms, nap spaces, and a rooftop farm. A new bathhouse, connected to a central core, doubles as a therapeutic retreat, while a circular “adults’ tower” accommodates administration and security.
Each space is choreographed like a track in a concept album—its colors, textures, and light quality shaping the atmosphere of a specific scene. Together, they form a journey that mirrors the Piper’s path, leading visitors through moments of play, contemplation, and encounter.
The design stages a continuing journey of the pipers and the children. We enter the senior nursery through patterned-brick hallways where sunlight and shadow weave across the path. Another narrative thread of the rats starting from “rats square”; moves through the library, reception, and café around a tranquil courtyard; ascending to an auditorium, music and dance rooms, nap spaces, and a rooftop farm; culminating in a bathhouse and terrace garden—a space that might be an ending, or a beginning. Here, Escape can also be a return.
Architecture is closely intertwined with “people”, yet people forget what they were. The story reveals a state of liminality as children become adults, showing the dilemmas the Piper faces. The Piper can awaken awareness in children or even rats, yet is powerless in the adult world without resources, allies, or authority. Here, architecture embraces conflict, memory, and playfulness to provoke awakening and resist control. It challenges the viewer to see architecture not as a passive container, but as an active force of creativity, disruption, and revelation—like the Piper, or the music that lures you.