Back to childhood

Back to childhood

“Playing, for a child, is the possibility of cutting out a little piece of the world and manipulating it, alone or with friends, knowing that where they cannot reach, they can invent it.” Francesco Tonucci.

Architecture: The kindergarten school El Til-ler, by Eduard Balcells, Ignasi Rius and Daniel Tigges Arquitectos, in Barcelona, Spain.

The exterior images are based on the original photographs by Adrià Goula. I really enjoyed researching and imagining the activities that take place in a kindergarten and then capturing them at different times of the day.

The image above shows the arrival at the school, the early morning lighting is warm, generating a sense of welcome. Next image is set in the kindergarten's playground, the day is clear and children can enjoy themselves playing in the midday sun.

Now focusing on the teachers, on the resting space at the entrance of the classroom, a semi-shaded space that invites to relax while watching the children playing in the playground

For the interior images I chose a classroom for 2-3 year olds and the eurythmics hall.

I wanted to show the children's classroom in two different moments of the day. The first moment is focused on the preparation of the day's activity by the teachers, the sun is rising and everything is orderly and calm.

The second moment is the classroom after the pupils have arrived and the activity has been carried out, with daylight and a more lively atmosphere, with the typical messiness of children.

In the eurythmics hall I wanted to experiment with artificial lighting. I recreated a sensorial activity where cold coloured lights play a leading role, in contrast with the sunset dying the sky with its orange hue.

With this last image I wanted to show a detail of the construction set on the classroom table, with a very horizontal light that accentuates the geometric figures.

The making of

This project was modelled with 3dsmax and rendered with VRay. To scatter the vegetation as well as the glasses, bottles and balls I used Forest Pack. The postproduction is made with Photoshop.

These are the phases in which I have created this project:

1. Modelling the base architecture and the terrain to choose the framing and make lighting tests.

2. Testing color prior to texturing in order to try the colour palette and adjust the lighting.

3. Creation of the final materials and choice of assets and vegetation for each scene.

In the sliders you can see these phases in reverse order, starting with the final render.

This project has been a challenge in itself, as it was the first large-scale project I had undertaken. All the architecture, the terrain and the fixed furniture of the classroom were modelled by me. Some assets have also been modelled by me, such as the books, the construction set, the hoops, balls and coloured glasses. The rest of the assets and vegetation were downloaded from different sites like Sketchfab, 3dsky, Polyhaven, Quixel Bridge, Ambient CG, Textures.com and CG Trader.

The fabrics of the eurythmics hall and the cushion were modelled with Marvelous Designer, here I show some images of the process.

An example of the materials created for these scenes. The wood for the facade, the railing and plywood for the interior cladding.

Thank you so much for taking your time watching my project!

Feel free to leave a comment if you have some feedback. I truly appreciate it!