Shanghai Normal University Affiliated Putuo Science and Technology School, Shanghai

Putuo is located in the north-west of central Shanghai and was long regarded as a relatively unremarkable industrial district. In recent years, a new urban centre has been taking shape around Zhenru Town, bringing together housing, workplaces and infrastructure. Located on the A03-01 plot of the Zhenru Urban Sub-Center, this project aims to enhance the comprehensive attractiveness of the area. The school is the first school affiliated with Shanghai Normal University with a focus on science and technology innovation. It is a public, integrated 12-year school, of which the elementary section is being built first.

The design was developed by Tongji Architectural Design (Group) Co., Ltd. The school is designed with the vision of "Urban Green Carpet, Cloud Campus," aiming to create an open, lightweight campus that engages with nature within a dense urban environment. The ground floor is elevated to free up space for activities at street level, while the rooftop playground and tiered platforms form a vertical greening system, making the building appear as layers of clouds floating above the city. Under the guiding concept "Warm Rhythm · A Container for Growth," the architects combine contemporary architecture with a clear educational vision.

A Rich Interplay

The façade is defined by the interplay of two materials: terracotta-coloured corrugated panels meet light grey surfaces with a timber appearance. The red colour represents the vitality of the children while also recalling Shanghai's traditional brick architecture. Tongji Architectural Design explains:

The vertical wave-like lines create a rich interplay of light and shadow in the sunlight and symbolise the students' upward development. 

By contrast, the horizontally articulated grey surfaces appear calm and orderly, almost like bookshelves, giving the building a sense of stability and security. The combination of warm and cool tones, as well as open and closed surfaces, creates a place that moves beyond the rigid character of conventional school buildings.

Structural and decorative elements come together seamlessly in the façade. The delicate texture imprinted by the elastic formliner produces subtle, rhythmic light and shadow variations under daylight, giving the concrete surface a silken, soft quality that softens the material's usual heaviness and coldness. This textural language echoes both the fluidity of "clouds" and the vitality of "green," while its precise modular proportions and sense of order subtly align with the rational spirit of a science and technology school.

Educational Spaces With Poetic Tension

The durability and low-maintenance qualities of concrete also meet the requirements of sustainable building, lending the architecture a quiet, humanistic character over time. Each panel becomes a light-catcher, allowing the building's exterior to shift with weather and time of day, infusing educational spaces with poetic tension. In their daily movements, students can perceive this resonance between material and nature — realising the deeper value of spatial education.

To preserve the appearance of the textured surface over the long term, it was treated with RECKLI OS HO, a colourless, water-based impregnation. It penetrates the concrete without altering the appearance of the surface, protecting it from within against water and oil.

This helps prevent water streaks and efflorescence while making it more difficult for moss to take hold on the façade. At the same time, the surface remains permeable to water vapour, allowing any moisture that has penetrated the concrete to escape. This is particularly important in Shanghai’s warm and humid climate.

As a result, the façade remains well protected against the effects of weathering over the long term.