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O.B. Montessori unveils new classrooms for AY 2022–2023

OCT 21

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Last October 8, 2022, saw O.B. Montessori’s newly redecorated classrooms featured on ANC.

This artistic surprise was long in the making. With the physical work starting from mid-April to September 2022, the new classrooms featured artistic designs to inspire and promote a fun learning environment for the students in all levels.

In the ANC article, President and COO Mrs. Sara Soliven-De Guzman described the move as “inevitable having come from an unprecedented moment in O.B. Montessori’s 56-year old history.”

According to Mrs. Soliven-De Guzman, “Ang lungkot naman ng school, babalik yung mga bata [sa] malungkot. Pag hindi ka pumasok sa isang bahay ng napakatagal, wala yung spirit, walang energy. We needed to prepare for the coming of students.”

The article goes on to describe Mrs. Soliven-De Guzman saying that the new décor is not a renovation, but a “changing of the vibe and the spirit of the [OBMC] surroundings.”

She goes on to say that, “Coming from two years of looking at very colorful, action-packed monitors, and then you’re [going] to enter a bland school? What if they say, ‘Mama, I prefer online na lang than face to face’?”

This change brings a fresh new vibe to the already familiar classrooms of the five O.B. Montessori campuses, which brought much delight to the returning students.

About the Designers

Designers Rita Nazareno and Gabriel Lichauco were behind the new look of O.B. Montessori classrooms, from Casa (Kinder) to Senior High School.

Rita Nazareno is the Creative Director of ZACARIAS1925, a brand of hand-woven bags and accessories with a modern twist on the traditional hand-weaving crafts.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Lichauco is a professor of design at the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, School of Design. He was also named as one of Asia’s “100 Leading Designers” in Design in Asia: The New Wave in 2020.

Together, their artistic expertise is applied brilliantly on the specific themes found in each classroom design.

The Classrooms’ New Look Explained

Each classroom has a specific theme, carefully designed by Nazareno and Lichauco.

For the Casa (Kinder) classrooms, basic geometric shapes like squares, rectangles, and triangles are the theme. These are simple yet evoke the feeling of nature with their colors of blue, yellow, brown and green.

The Primary Grade School classrooms take this feeling of being close to nature further with vibrant colors meant to represent the earth, water, sky, and sunshine.

Things become more solid with the Intermediate Grade School classrooms, which feature prominent scientific inventions. Inspiration for the wall designs came from the works of Da Vinci, Tesla, and other great geniuses of humanity.

High School classrooms feature tributes to works from all over the world. From Zaha Hadid’s architectural style to pop culture references like the Star Wars franchise all the way to the iconic Filipino jeepney, these artworks give Junior High School students a glimpse of what they can experience outside their own borders.

Finally, we have the Senior High School classrooms, which celebrate important figures in Philippine contemporary art, like Roberto Chabet and Leo Valledor.

By breathing new life to once monotone classrooms, students are sure to appreciate the colors and artistic beauty of O.B. Montessori’s new environments for learning.

For more information, visit our official website and give us a chat!