Imagine being a meter tall and dashing around the donut-shaped roof of your school. Or picture studying math while taking in the rich smell of timber in one of a variety of wooden houses connected by a single three-story atrium, or attending a zero-carbon wooden school in the forest.

Far removed from the standardized post-World War II white concrete boxes that dot the country, these schools represent an innovative direction the Japanese educational system could take. Takaharu and Yui Tezuka, Kengo Kuma and Ben Nakamura, the acclaimed architects behind the designs, are committed to creating educational environments to cultivate and inspire the next generation.

Fuji Kindergarten