The commission asked for the design of two schools – a kindergarten and an elementary school – conceived as welcoming and inclusive social infrastructure in two neighbouring rural settlements of the fertile Thessalian plain. Both sites previously accommodated schools that were severely damaged by the earthquakes and catastrophic floods that affected central Greece in 2021 and 2023. Emerging from this shared condition of environmental devastation, the proposal approaches the two schools as a unified form of social infrastructure, articulated through a common architectural language that adapts to the distinct geographical, ecological, economic, and social conditions of each settlement. The two schools are conceived as open agrarian frameworks in which the community entrusts its youngest members. Their spatial organisation supports multiple forms of use throughout the day, the week, and across seasonal events. The schools draw from the architecture and scale of rural Thessaly: sloping roofs, sheds, greenhouses, silos, earth materials, stone walls, simple and familiar structures occasionally interrupted by moments of surprise in colour, material, and form. In these archetypes of rural architecture, human labor coexists with play; machines with animals and vegetation; everyday life with collective learning. 

In both schools, each programmatic cluster is organised into distinct volumes. These volumes follow the rituals and architecture of small settlements of the Greek countryside: domestic units alongside structures of public collective life. The infant play rooms, indoor rest areas, classrooms and the spaces of collective infrastructure of both schools acquire their unique form, with a particular significance given to the Multipurpose Room. Remaining accessible to the local community through autonomous entrances, these latter spaces can function independently from the daily operation of the school. In the openings created by the detachment or the rotation of the individual volumes, an inbetween space is generated; “the collective threshold” of each school. A light wooden structure, sometimes enclosed while others as a covered pergola, highlights this threshold. Underneath, communal functions and auxiliary spaces are placed, while in parts it can also function as a flexible space for play, exercise and outdoor teaching.