Will Jones
（Greenterrace Kindergarten, designed by Chen Yang）
Greenterrace Kindergarten, a project led by architectural designer Chen Yang, has recently won the Jury Winner distinction in the Institutional—Unbuilt Institutional category of the 2026 Architizer A+Awards. Chen served as Lead Architectural Designer and directed the project’s core design development. Established by the global architecture platform Architizer, the A+Awards encompasses architecture, design, technology, real estate, and related fields.
The 2026 A+Awards drew more than 4,000 submissions from around the world, which were reviewed by an international jury of more than 250 architects, designers, curators, educators, and industry leaders. According to the award program’s published structure, only a limited group of finalists is selected in each category, and just one project receives the Jury Winner distinction from among those finalists. Greenterrace Kindergarten’s selection therefore represents a highly competitive form of recognition within the global architecture and design community. Inspired by the terraced landscape of Yunnan, Greenterrace Kindergarten embeds its architectural form within the local topography and agricultural way of life, closely aligning with the award program’s emphasis on responsiveness to place, human-centered scale, and environmental sensitivity.
The award adds to Chen Yang’s growing record of international recognition in architectural design. His work has received honors from multiple global design programs, including the MUSE Design Awards, International Design Awards, DNA Paris Design Awards, Architecture MasterPrize, Buildner, and Red Dot. Across these projects, Chen has developed a practice centered on environmentally responsive design, adaptive reuse, community-oriented public space, and the relationship between architecture, land, and social life, with particular attention to how design can improve resource efficiency, expand the civic value of shared facilities, and support more sustainable forms of community development.
Chen Yang’s role in Greenterrace Kindergarten extended well beyond the design of its exterior appearance or individual spaces. As Lead Architectural Designer, he participated in and advanced the project’s overall conceptual development. Drawing from the distinctive topography of Yunnan’s terraced fields and the agricultural practices of local communities, he established the project’s central vision: a learning environment that appears to grow directly from the landscape. The terraces’ layered configuration, flowing curves, and continuous ground surfaces were translated into the project’s spatial organization, allowing the kindergarten to function not as an isolated building placed within a rural setting, but as a natural extension of the surrounding terrain. This site-based approach also reflects a broader methodology for working with existing land conditions rather than imposing standardized building forms, a consideration increasingly relevant to sustainable development and rural public infrastructure.
Building upon this central concept, Chen Yang further integrated architectural form with educational function. The project employs a continuous, curving, and gradually ascending spatial structure that connects classrooms, indoor activity areas, outdoor learning terraces, and rooftop recreational spaces into a unified learning route. Through walking, climbing, observation, and outdoor activities, children can experience spaces at different heights and scales while engaging with farmland, climate, vegetation, and seasonal change. The architecture therefore serves not merely as a setting for education, but as an educational tool through which children can better understand their local environment and the natural world.
（Greenterrace Kindergarten, designed by Chen Yang）
Another key aspect of Chen Yang’s contribution was his redefinition of the role of a rural kindergarten. In addition to spaces dedicated to children’s education, the design incorporates rest and storage areas for farmers, community gathering spaces, and shared facilities intended for different groups of users. By coordinating these functions within a unified architectural system, the project breaks down the conventional boundary between the kindergarten and the surrounding community. Conceptually, it is designed to serve children, families, agricultural workers, and local residents alike.
This functional integration involves more than simply adding rooms to the program. It reflects Chen Yang’s broader consideration of how public resources can be used more effectively in rural communities. In areas where public facilities may be limited, an educational building that operates only during fixed hours and serves a single user group may not realize its full public value. Through mixed-use programming and shared spaces, Chen Yang enables the kindergarten to accommodate education, rest, social interaction, and community activities at different times, proposing a more flexible and adaptive model for rural educational infrastructure. This approach gives the project relevance beyond a single school design by connecting mixed-use programming with a wider need for community facility renewal, reduced duplicated construction, improved public access, and more efficient use of rural land and infrastructure.
Environmental strategies also form an important part of Chen Yang’s overall design approach. The project incorporates natural ventilation, solar energy, mist irrigation, and rainwater harvesting systems in response to the environmental conditions of Yunnan’s terraced landscape. More importantly, these systems are not treated solely as technical equipment concealed behind the architecture. Instead, they are incorporated into the children’s perceptual and educational experience. The collection of rainwater, the movement of natural air through the building, and the use of irrigation to support plant growth can all become tangible ways for children to understand resource cycles and ecological relationships. This turns environmental performance into a form of public education, suggesting how rural facilities can reduce resource waste while cultivating ecological awareness from an early age.
Chen Yang’s central contribution was therefore not limited to shaping the project’s architectural form. He established a comprehensive design methodology that began with research into the site and local culture, translated the terraced landscape into an architectural language, connected education with community life through continuous circulation and mixed-use programming, and integrated passive and low-impact environmental strategies into the children’s daily experience. As a result, the project’s form, function, and social objectives operate as a mutually supportive system rather than as separate design elements, offering a transferable approach for rural public facilities that must balance cultural continuity, limited land resources, ecological responsibility, and diverse community needs.
（Architecture Designer: Chen Yang）
Its selection as a 2026 Architizer A+Awards Jury Winner reflects the international jury’s recognition of Chen Yang’s rethinking of educational architecture and his ability to transform regional culture, ecological systems, and community needs into a coherent architectural solution. The recognition also underscores the broader relevance of his methodology in linking environmental responsibility, public-resource efficiency, and community-oriented design.
By drawing spatial order from Yunnan’s terraced landscape and developing it into a platform for children’s education, ecological engagement, and community use, Greenterrace Kindergarten reflects Chen Yang’s sustained interest in the broader social role of architecture. The award brings this design methodology, rooted in the rural landscape of China, into a wider international architectural conversation and further establishes Chen Yang’s professional influence in environmentally responsive and community-oriented design.