Up to the Stars on the Comet: A Children's Space Center Shaped by Celestial Forces

What if a building could teach children about the cosmos simply through its shape? The Education Space Center "Up to the Stars on the Comet" takes the anatomy of a comet and turns it into architecture: a faceted crystalline sphere stands as the comet's head, while a series of cascading terraces stretches behind it like a luminous tail. The result is a structure that reads as both a landmark and a lesson, visible from the riverbank and a nearby highway, designed to pull young visitors into a world of science and space exploration before they even step inside.

Designed by Irina Kapunkina, the project was shortlisted in the Moontrip 2019 competition. The scheme positions itself as a new civic symbol for science education, housing classrooms, a cafeteria, a library, an amphitheater, and exhibition spaces within a site whose pathways are modeled after celestial constellations. It is a project that refuses to separate pedagogy from spectacle.

A Corridor Painted with Stars

The interior corridors set the tone immediately. Glazed storefronts line the passage, opening onto educational program spaces, while overhead the ceiling transforms into a dark canvas painted with stars and celestial imagery. The effect is immersive rather than decorative: children moving through the building are constantly reminded that this is a place oriented toward the sky. The contrast between the transparency of the glass walls and the deep, cosmic ceiling creates a spatial tension that keeps the eye moving upward.

The Comet Lands on the Riverfront

From across the plaza, the faceted glass volume rises above the terraced structures beneath it, its angular geometry catching daylight and fragmenting it across the surrounding surfaces. The relationship between the crystalline dome and the stepped volumes below it is the project's defining formal move: one reads as mineral and explosive, the other as geological and grounded. Together they produce the comet silhouette that gives the center its name.

At night, the waterfront elevation becomes something else entirely. Seen from a boat on the river under a full moon, the faceted glass pavilion glows from within, its illuminated faces creating a beacon that anchors the site to the city's skyline. Kapunkina's decision to position the building for maximum visibility from both water and road suggests an understanding of architecture as urban event, not just enclosed space.

A Multi-Level Atrium Suspended Between Planets

The heart of the building is a multi-level atrium capped by a gridded glass canopy. Suspended planetary models hang at various heights within the void, turning the central space into a three-dimensional solar system that visitors navigate on foot. Dark tiled floors anchor the space visually while the transparency of the roof floods it with natural light. The atrium functions simultaneously as circulation hub, exhibition hall, and gathering space, collapsing the boundaries between moving through the building and learning from it.

The axonometric drawing reveals how the circular volume and the rectilinear program spaces are stacked and interlocked, with a wireframe roof canopy unifying the composition above. The floor plates shift in plan as they rise, creating overhangs and double-height voids that allow visual connections between levels. This is not a simple container for classrooms; it is a spatial instrument calibrated to encourage curiosity.

Outdoor Learning on the Rooftop Deck

The terraced tail of the comet is not merely formal. Its stepped roofscape becomes a series of outdoor study areas and gathering platforms, culminating in a rooftop deck with wooden planking and glazed pyramid skylights that bring light down into the levels below. The faceted dome structure looms nearby against the evening sky, its geometry in constant dialogue with the horizontal planes of the deck. It is a space designed for looking outward and upward, reinforcing the center's core mission.

The section drawing clarifies the spatial logic: the domed structure contains the primary exhibition and atrium spaces, while the adjacent rectilinear volumes house classrooms, the library, the cafeteria, and the amphitheater. The section shows generous floor-to-ceiling heights and deliberate connections between interior levels and the exterior terraces, ensuring that the educational program spills beyond the walls of the building.

Constellation Pathways and a Landscaped Island

The axonometric site plan reveals the full scope of Kapunkina's ambition. The complex sits on a landscaped oval island, its pathways laid out in patterns modeled after celestial constellations. Construction sequence diagrams show how the project phases from site preparation through the erection of the dome and the completion of the terraced volumes. The landscape is not an afterthought; it extends the building's pedagogical program into the ground plane, so that even walking to the front door becomes an act of spatial learning.

Why This Project Matters

Children's educational buildings too often default to bright colors and cartoon forms, mistaking visual simplicity for engagement. Kapunkina's project takes the opposite approach: it trusts children with a genuinely complex spatial experience, one that uses material transparency, sectional layering, and thematic coherence to communicate ideas about science and exploration. The comet metaphor is not applied as decoration but as a generative principle that shapes massing, circulation, and landscape alike.

As a shortlisted entry in Moontrip 2019, "Up to the Stars on the Comet" demonstrates how a clear conceptual framework can organize a rich and varied program without losing coherence. The faceted dome, the terraced tail, the constellation pathways: each element reinforces the others, producing a project where architecture and pedagogy are genuinely inseparable. It is a convincing argument that the best way to inspire young minds is to build a world worth being curious about.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Irina Kapunkina

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Project credits: Up to the Stars on the Comet by Irina Kapunkina Moontrip 2019 (uni.xyz).