Dorner\Matt Architekten

Description

With three structurally similar multi-storey building types and the gym building, the schools in Herrenried form a spacious, green campus. The extension of the elementary school carries forward this typology. Leaving the marked spatial quality of the existing buildings untouched, the project added a one-storey annex with garden courtyard. Children go through crucial phases of their development at school. School life lays the foundation for lifelong learning, for the joy of education and training and for active participation in society. Therefore, schools today are working and learning landscapes, places of encounter, places to linger, and should above all be places where children can grow up together and develop a sense of community. Their creativity and imagination can develop if they are provided with spaces for movement, play and experience. The new entrance to the school and the auditorium have been centrally positioned at the interface between new and old, in the forecourt separating the existing administration wing from the gym. Based on the principle of subsets, the building is configured for four clusters with three «core classes» each. Half of these classes are assigned directly to a group room and the other half indirectly. «Special rooms» are also assigned to each cluster, for example a library or rooms for music or crafts. These rooms are meant to challenge and encourage pupils to move around the building, to make use of their freedom and to visit the neighbouring cluster.