CY! Education Workshop is an educational space located within an office building. The design follows a light construction principle, aiming to create an open and free learning atmosphere.
CY! Education Workshop is situated in a high-rise office building in Shanghai, covering approximately 150 square meters. The overall layout is rectangular, with the elevator lobby located centrally on the south side and city green space visible from the north-facing windows. The space was originally delivered as a typical office shell with a net ceiling height of 2.6 meters. The ceiling consists of mineral fiber panels integrated with lighting, air vents, and fire protection systems. The floor features cement self-leveling with an embedded grid of metal cable trunking. Construction requirements emphasize high cleanliness standards and a tight schedule, with work primarily conducted during nighttime hours.
In response to the site characteristics and the workshop’s ethos of openness, diversity, and freedom, the design emphasizes spatial flexibility in the layout and adopts construction methods that correspond with typical office building attributes, enabling light and efficient build-out.
In the floor plan layout, the space is divided into a room area near the entrance and an open learning zone by the windows. The room area consists of three functional clusters arranged with slight rotation along the original building grid, naturally forming reception area, corridors, and other service spaces between them. The clusters and the open learning zone are separated by storage racks repurposed from prefabricated scaffolding, which both define the space and serve as display and storage units.
The overall color scheme is derived from the workshop’s visual identity system, applying orange to soft materials and green to hard materials, cultivating a vibrant and creative learning environment.
The project prioritizes principles of rapid assembly, necessity, and efficiency in construction.
The partition walls are structured primarily using prefabricated modular scaffolding systems, which offer advantages of quick assembly, cost-effectiveness, and reliable load-bearing capacity, meeting the workshop’s needs for flexibility and fast construction. The partitions are composed of three vertical components from bottom to top: metal base, scaffolding system, and plywood header. Combined with curtains, this arrangement allows for flexible opening and closing of rooms and provides a degree of sound insulation without altering the existing ceiling.
Base: Metal bases paired with carpeting define each cluster’s boundaries. The layout follows a modular design to minimize component variety and reduce construction complexity.
Columns (Scaffolding system): Prefabricated scaffold frames are installed on the metal bases. Scaffold hooks combined with wooden boards transform these frames into storage racks that function both as partitions and structural supports. Vertical panels are added in certain areas to provide visual screening and sound absorption.
Top (Plywood header): Connects the column system into an integrated whole. Pegboards on the header allow flexible display of room names and signage.
This integrated system serves the dual purpose of spatial division and storage/display, while modular control ensures construction efficiency and future adaptability.
