Natural Inclusion: Where Agriculture Becomes the Curriculum in School Design

What happens when you stop treating nature as a field trip destination and start building it into the walls of a school? Natural Inclusion answers that question with a multi-level educational facility where greenhouses function as classrooms, rooftop playgrounds replace asphalt lots, and a working farming center teaches students about food systems in real time. The school does not simply sit in a landscape; it produces one.

Designed by Chris Lee, this shortlisted entry in the Learn Better competition proposes a school that dissolves the boundary between built environment and ecological system. The architectural programme weaves agricultural education, technology labs, and flexible classrooms into a structure that treats sustainability not as a feature but as the organizing logic of the entire campus.

Concrete, Timber, and the Weight of a Corridor

The interior corridor sets the tonal register for the whole project. Textured concrete walls carry a deliberate rawness, grounding the space in material honesty, while exposed timber beams overhead introduce warmth and a legible structural rhythm. Silhouetted figures move through the corridor at various scales, suggesting a space designed to accommodate both small children and adults without overwhelming either. The palette is restrained: there is no overdesigned signage, no forced color. The architecture does the wayfinding.

A Cafeteria That Grows Its Own Context

The cafeteria rendering reveals one of the project's most compelling moves: an indoor farming area lit by grow lights sits adjacent to the dining space, connected by an open staircase that pulls daylight deep into the section. A perspective courtyard sketch included in the same composite hints at how these interior agricultural zones relate to the exterior landscape. Food is not abstract here. Students eat alongside the systems that produce it.

The courtyard view reinforces this strategy at a different scale. A glass facade lined with integrated planters blurs the threshold between inside and out, while vertical metal screens modulate light and privacy along the landscaped pathway. The planting is not decorative; it is continuous with the agricultural programme that runs through the school's curriculum. Green terraces extend learning spaces vertically, turning the building's section into a stacked landscape.

Separating Cars from Children at the Threshold

The rendered elevation of the main entrance addresses a problem most school designs underestimate: the violence of the drop-off zone. A cantilevered canopy covers the vehicular arrival point while keeping it physically distinct from pedestrian access. Bicycles parked beneath the covered entrance suggest a community that has options beyond the car. The separation of vehicular and pedestrian circulation is not just a safety measure; it is a statement about what kind of mobility the school values.

Rooftop Playgrounds and Grass-Covered Volumes

A composite rendering pulls together four key moments: an exterior deck, a tunnel view framing landscape beyond, a green roof playground, and grass-covered stepped volumes that cascade down the building's profile. The rooftop playground is not a token gesture; it replaces ground-level recreation space with an elevated plane that keeps children away from service traffic while giving them sky. The stepped volumes recall landforms more than buildings, softening the institution's mass and offering outdoor terraces for age-separated play and instruction.

Reading the Section: How the Programme Stacks

The section drawing, overlaid with a site plan, is the most analytically revealing image in the set. It maps the spatial relationships between the library, gymnasium, classrooms, and rooftop playground, showing how the multi-level configuration achieves optimal zoning. Kindergarten areas and upper-grade zones are isolated for age-appropriate engagement, while community-friendly access points along the perimeter open onto outdoor courts and tracks. The farming center and greenhouse read as anchors in the plan, positioned to function as working classrooms accessible to multiple age groups simultaneously.

The section also clarifies the building's environmental strategy. Sun-lit spaces like the cafeteria are placed to maximize southern exposure, while the tech-integrated computer lab and flexible classrooms are buffered deeper in the plan. The architecture does not merely contain the programme; it sequences it, guiding students from enclosed, focused learning environments outward toward open, experiential ones.

Why This Project Matters

Most sustainable school proposals stop at green roofs and solar panels. Natural Inclusion goes further by making the ecological systems themselves the subject of the curriculum. The greenhouse is not an add-on; it is a classroom. The farming center is not a weekend community garden; it is where students learn about food production, biological cycles, and leadership. The architecture supports an educational philosophy that integrates thinking, feeling, and doing, and it does so through spatial decisions, not just programmatic ones.

Chris Lee's proposal anticipates a near future in which schools will be judged not only by test scores but by the environmental literacy of their graduates. By rooting educational architecture in agriculture and ecological awareness, Natural Inclusion makes a convincing case that the most radical thing a school building can do is teach children where their food comes from, and let them grow it themselves.

View the Full Project

About the Designers

Designer: Chris Lee

Enter a Design Competition on uni.xyz

uni.xyz runs architecture and design competitions year-round that reward proposals with spatial conviction and real site intelligence.

Project credits: Natural Inclusion by Chris Lee Learn Better (uni.xyz).