Campus Lozen Park is located in the developing Lozen Park district on the outskirts of Sofia, Bulgaria. Developed in partnership with International School Uwekind and as part of the wider Residential Park Lozen masterplan, the project brings together a kindergarten, primary, middle, and high school programs, administrative functions, sports facilities, and shared spaces within a single educational complex.
Designed by IPA - Architecture and more, the project is based on the idea that learning extends beyond the classroom. Rather than forming a single compact volume, the building is organized as a composition of low-rise elements around courtyards and landscaped outdoor spaces. This arrangement responds to the scale of the surrounding residential development while establishing close visual and physical connections between interior learning spaces and the landscape.
One of the main architectural challenges was accommodating several educational stages within one structure while preserving the independence, safety, and identity of each age group. The solution is based on clear functional zoning and carefully organized circulation. The kindergarten, primary, middle, and high school areas can operate independently, while shared facilities create points of connection across the complex. This balance between separation and interaction became a defining principle of the design.
The three-story educational building accommodates a broad program that supports different forms of learning and social activity. It includes a library and information center with an applied arts area, music, science, and technology classrooms, conference rooms, a theater workshop, large and small sports halls, a cafeteria with its own kitchen, and a multifunctional performance hall. Rather than functioning as isolated specialist rooms, these shared spaces extend the educational environment beyond conventional classrooms and support collaboration, creativity, performance, and physical activity.
The organization of the typical school floor is deliberately clear and compact. Classrooms are supported by sanitary facilities, storage, and service spaces and connected by naturally lit corridors with direct access to vertical circulation and the courtyard. In the kindergarten, each group has its own activity room, sleeping room, cloakroom, and sanitary facilities, together with direct access to dedicated outdoor areas. The needs of different age groups are therefore embedded in the spatial organization without fragmenting the building into disconnected parts.
Common areas play an equally important role. Foyers, corridors, and staircases are conceived as bright, open spaces with visual connections to the exterior. Instead of serving only as circulation, they become places for orientation, informal interaction, and learning outside the classroom. The façades combine natural materials and warm tones to articulate different programmatic zones while maintaining a coherent architectural language and a scale appropriate to children.
The courtyard forms the spatial center of the project. Designed as an extension of the learning environment, it includes pedestrian routes, playgrounds, a combined sports field, planted areas, and spaces for gathering and recreation. Trees, shrubs, and landscaped zones help define different outdoor activities while improving the microclimate, reducing dust, and creating natural buffers between the building and its surroundings.
Landscape and architecture are closely connected throughout the project. The low-rise composition allows classrooms and shared spaces to maintain a direct relationship with the exterior, while the courtyards bring daylight, greenery, and outdoor activity into the center of the building. This relationship supports a learning environment in which indoor and outdoor spaces are understood as complementary rather than separate.
Campus Lozen Park has a gross floor area of 7,834 sqm on a 6,200 sqm site. The school accommodates 26 classes with approximately 520 students, while the kindergarten provides space for 40 children in two groups. The project also includes 24 car parking spaces and more than 120 bicycle parking spaces, supporting cycling as part of the daily mobility strategy.
Campus Lozen Park approaches the educational building not as a collection of classrooms, but as a connected environment shaped around different stages of learning. Its architecture gives each age group a recognizable place of its own while using courtyards, shared facilities, landscape, and circulation spaces to create opportunities for interaction. The result is a school in which spatial organization, learning, and community life are closely interconnected.
