Toro Arquitectos designs ring-shaped Ciales Kindergarten in Puerto Rico

An outdoor play area sits at the heart of this ring-shaped concrete kindergarten in Puerto Rico, designed by local studio Toro Arquitectos to create "a safe, engaging, and functional environment" for children.

Ciales Kindergarten replaces a former funeral home, which was transformed by Toro Arquitectos and extended with a circular structure alongside it.

Aerial view of a ring-shaped concrete building with a central outdoor play area — The Ciales Kindergarten's ring-shaped form surrounds a central outdoor play area

The "unremarkable" existing building was turned into office spaces, while the new concrete ring houses the children's learning and play facilities.

"The Ciales Kindergarten will fill an immediate need for early childhood education in Ciales and surrounding municipalities in central Puerto Rico," said the studio. "Forty-eight children will benefit from this new facility."

An overhanging concrete roof shelters an outdoor circulation path — The overhanging concrete roof shelters outdoor circulation from Puerto Rico's weather

Located in the Manatí River valley and nestled against towering limestone-karst cliffs, the two buildings sit in stark contrast to one another.

"We stripped all superficial decorative motifs from the existing building to intensify its condition of 'background building', allowing the new school to become the protagonist," Toro Arquitectos said.

Play area with concrete walls, green flooring, and glass facade — Concrete walls inside the classrooms and play areas are offset by colourful flooring and equipment

The concrete ring's diameter aligns perfectly with the edge of the older building, and the structure is divided into 12 equal segments

Its shape maximises the 360-degree views outward, while creating a private and protected area for the kids inside.

Classroom with glass doors leading out to a louvred play area — Classrooms share outdoor play spaces around the building's perimeter

"This design strategy not only responds to the site's natural beauty but also fosters a safe, engaging, and functional environment for the children and staff alike," said Toro Arquitectos.

Around the exterior, board-formed concrete walls are punctuated by doorways and large openings covered with vertical louvres that provide shade and obscure views inward.

Concrete building with wall of yellow louvres — Brightly hued louvres shade the outdoor spaces and obscure views from the exterior

The six classrooms all face inward and open onto the central courtyard, where circles of green astroturf and colourful equipment form a play area.

A large overhang of the roofline creates outdoor circulation that's protected from Puerto Rico's tropical weather – offering both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain.

Pairs of classrooms share three additional smaller outdoor play spaces around the perimeter, and another segment is also dedicated to communal play.

Smoothed concrete surfaces are left exposed across the walls inside, enlivened by brightly hued flooring, tiles and soft furnishings.

Ring-shaped concrete buildings surrounded by a grassy field — The concrete building is divided equally into 12 segments and is punctuated by doorways

"The irony of a funeral home's site becoming an early childhood development center was ever-present throughout the design process," Toro Arquitectos said.

"As we decided on a circular scheme to distinguish the school from the existing building, creating a dialogue between the two, we realised that the circular form had, inadvertently, become a metaphor for the cycle of life."

View over a ring-shaped building and a rectilinear structure, with a green valley beyond — The new building joins an existing rectilinear structure, which was converted from a funeral home into offices

Architecture for early learning is ideally playful and experimental to foster joy and stir up young imaginations.

A colour-blocked creche in France, a nursery patterned with animal shapes in Italy, and a facility decorated to resemble the sea and sky in Australia are amongst other recently completed examples.

The photography is by Paola Quevedo Santos.

Project credits:

Team: José Javier Toro, Gastón Saboulard, Luis Rodriguez, Gabriela Ennich
Structural: Miguel Zapata
Electrical: Alfonso Lázaro, Requena y Asociados
Mechanical: Jorge Ledón

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