BRANDENBERGER KLOTER ARCHITECTS ANDRÉ CAMPOS JOANA MENDES
SCHOOL AARWANGEN
LB 12 SCHOOL AARWANGEN, is the fourth title of a series of five LONG BOOKS by the architects Oliver Brandenberger and Adrian Kloter. The two Basel-based architects, regard the needs of future users to be a key aspect of conceiving new buildings, forming the basis of their designs. The resulting spaces have a high quality, where people feel comfortable and can develop. This volume begins with an interview conducted and written by Niki Zaugg, with the urban psychologist Alice Hollenstein, which is intended to inspire further discourse. This LONG BOOKS series is aimed at inviting readers to engage with the relevance and function of public buildings. It questions existing structures and identifies requirements, in order to find answers for the contemporary design of public buildings. Other titles this series: LB 09 COMMUNITY HALL LAUFENBURG Interview with the podcaster and editor Gülsha Adilji LB 10 SCHOOL PFEFFINGEN Interview with the documentary filmmaker Anna Thommen LB 11 DOUBLE KINDERGARTEN RÜTI Interview with the organization developer Petra Slembek LB 13 SCHOOL BIRRWIL Interview with the author Zoë Jenny
AMAG LONG BOOKS COLLECTION brings together a unique selection of projects that establish new paradigms in architecture. With a contemporary and timeless conceptual graphic language, the 1000 numbered copies of each LONG BOOK will document works with different scales and formal contexts that extend the boundaries of architectural expression.
BRANDENBERGER KLOTER ARCHITECTS ANDRÉ CAMPOS JOANA MENDES
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“CAN WE STILL AFFORD MONOFUNCTIONAL ROOMS?” AN INTERVIEW WITH THE URBAN PSYCHOLOGIST ALICE HOLLENSTEIN. WITH THOUGHTS FROM THE ARCHITECTS OLIVER BRANDENBERGER AND ADRIAN KLOTER.
Since her childhood, Alice Hollenstein has been fascinated by people and their living environments. Today, the urban and architectural psychologist advises businesses, municipalities and architectural offices. She works towards enabling a decent life for every human being.
Why did you agree to take part in this interview? Alice Hollenstein: Children are very important to me. They are our future. So it is all the more important to investigate how their living environment is shaped. Research shows that it affects the development of a child. What memories do you have of primary school? Alice Hollenstein: I went to three primary schools. The first was an old, romantic school building in a rural hamlet. As a child, I loved it there. Later, I moved to a larger primary school. It was a 1960s building with orange and brown colours, which I didn’t find attractive at all. Finally, I attended a school that was built in the late 1980s. The light blue colour and the wood were an improvement, but generally there were so many prohibiting instructions such as “Keep off the grass”.They created an unpleasant distance between myself and the spaces involved. I still remember that well. What was your favourite place in the school buildings? Alice Hollenstein: There were four places. The first was the room of the Biology teacher, which included an aquarium. The second was the library on the attic level. There were cushions on the floor, which made it very cosy. The third place I recall was the multifunctional room. It was a bright space with wooden floorboards, where we could play with balls and other things. And finally there was the long wooden bench in front of the school entrance. We huddled close together during cold breaks in the winter to warm each other up. What interests you about the Aarwangen primary school building? Alice Hollenstein: I’ll be honest. The exterior appearance initially inspired a reaction in me along the lines of, “what’s that chunk of concrete?” I preferred the interior with its various wooden elements. A question for the architects: Would you choose such a concrete façade again today? Architects: We find it important that new buildings are naturally integrated into the existing structures. Since this primary school building is a further module in an existing environment, the façade is orientated towards its surroundings. We planners must weigh up between material efficiency, flexibility and resilience on a case-by-case basis, in order to find the best solution for the project. In addition to economic and ecological responsibilities, we also have to ensure social sustainability. We are also interested in the versatility of exposed concrete. Alice Hollenstein, you said that there were many things you weren’t allowed to do. One additional positive aspect of concrete is that it’s as good as indestructible.
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Alice Hollenstein, now that you’ve heard the architects’ input, can you say more precisely what you liked about the Aarwangen primary school building? Alice Hollenstein: I’m still interested in the way such an abstract design was chosen for the façade and how children experience it. With respect to the interior, I find the brightness appealing. I also like the materialisation of the classrooms and the workplaces in the corridors. That allows children to be among themselves, while teachers can still keep an eye on them. I also think it’s great that acoustics were taken into account in implementing the design. That has a significant influence on children’s sense of wellbeing and is a fundamental precondition for successful learning. What is more important for children’s wellbeing: organisation or freedom? Alice Hollenstein: Orientation is one of the most important factors for a building. It helps children to move freely within it. But peace and clarity are also very important themes, since they prevent over-stimulation. Nevertheless, I get the impression that the Aarwangen school building could be a little less abstract. Coming back to your question: I think you need both organisation and freedom to allow children to feel comfortable and develop. What should educational buildings offer to enable children to learn ideally? Alice Hollenstein: There are various contributing factors. As mentioned earlier, orientation is very important. Also affordance. That means, how inviting is a location in order to use it. Other factors are the school building’s location, interaction between the building and the exterior space, safety, also with respect to traffic, the air quality, noise shielding, and experiencing nature in diverse ways, as well as places for recreation. It is especially important in day schools that children have a room where they can regenerate both cognitively and emotionally. Finally, the location’s transformation should not be overlooked. It is important to imagine how a place changes throughout the seasons and how it can be shaped accordingly. Such transformability encourages the children’s creativity. If you recall your primary school building: do you see fundamental differences between it and the school in Aarwangen? Alice Hollenstein: The role of corridors has changed considerably. They now seem to be used more for learning and interaction. Classrooms are also used differently today. In England, I saw schools with community spaces. They are areas that can be used in different ways: as a library, for parents or for various activities. The aim of such community spaces is to open up the school to society during non-school times. Architects: That’s an important goal. Basically, an educational building is a vessel that should be used by the community and the general public 24 hours a day. Alice Hollenstein: I’ve also heard that school teaching should not be so closely associated with a school building. Instead, one should consider which location would be best suited to communicate the subject. That may be a stroll through town, autonomous learning in a natural environment or frontal teaching in a classroom: you can learn everywhere. Architects: It’s interesting that you say that, since it was a theme of this project. There’s an indoor swimming pool on the school grounds, as well as a biology building, a media library and a multifunctional hall. The entire campus is actively used to shape lessons outside the classroom. Another important role of the multifunctional hall is that it can be used for community festivities. It thereby draws the social life of Aarwangen into the school.
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What tasks do you think a primary school building should be able to assume today? Alice Hollenstein: The tasks are the criteria that I have already mentioned. A follow-up question that we must ask ourselves as a society is: can we still afford monofunctional rooms? We also tend to “homify” buildings. That means office and school buildings are increasingly orientated towards the cosiness of one’s home. Do you think that’s a positive development? Alice Hollenstein: Yes, I do. Studies have shown that people learn better if they feel comfortable. To conclude, would you say your school days were a positive experience? Alice Hollenstein: Yes, very.
ALICE HOLLENSTEIN OLIVER BRANDENBERGER AND ADRIAN KLOTER
I presume it was very peaceful in the countryside? Alice Hollenstein: I imagine it would have been the same in a city. Ultimately, wellbeing doe not depend on the surroundings, but on social aspects. I always say: “A tiresome neighbour is much worse than an ugly building.”
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AARWANGEN, SWITZERLAND 2019-2021
In Aarwangen, we built a new primary school building on existing school grounds – thereby creating a new centre in the village. The new “Sonnhalde” is integrated among the existing buildings to form an ensemble that now clearly frames the terrain. Inside, the building is structured in an easily grasped way. The clear, spacious access areas can be transformed as required: learning is permitted everywhere. The new building combines with the existing indoor swimming pool, the secondary school building and the multifunctional hall to create a new ensemble. Together with the sports field, it frames the grounds more clearly and also forms a new area for gatherings. Towards the street, the building – like a gateway – forms the entrance to the Sonnhalde campus; together with the old tree population, it creates a spacious green facility with playgrounds for the kindergarten. The entire facility’s enhancement is not only appreciated by the children, but also the entire community of Aarwangen. To ensure that the new free-standing building is integrated into its surroundings, we chose joint-free in-situ cast concrete as the construction and façade material. It refers to the predecessor buildings from the 1960s. To structure the compact form of the building, the slightly projecting balustrade bands subdivide the building horizontally. The ventilation apertures are situated behind the window levels, thereby breaking up the strictly cuboid form. Inside, the school building is structured in an easily grasped way: a deep incision in the building guides people towards the school entrance and leads to a very generous entrance space. All of the school’s levels and rooms are accessed from there. These include the library, kindergarten and workshop rooms on the ground floor; the upper levels above all accommodate the classrooms. By organising the two contrary-running stairs in a staggered way, the children and adults cross each level and, having ascended, change their direction and perspective. In doing so, they can look outside, but also inwards, since the continuous indoor space provides visual references in both directions, thereby facilitating orientation; this is further enhanced by the glass doors of the spacious, bright classrooms. Each classroom also has a large window towards the corridor, which can be used as a seating niche or a viewing spot. Since some teachers in any case teach with open doors or even move their lessons into the corridor, this fulfils the desire for openness and transparency. The mobile and fold-away shelving is also helpful in this respect, as well as rolling tables and teaching equipment such as touchscreens. The glass surfaces with printed dot patterns are a playful detail that also assumes the role of wayfinding: on closer inspection, they reveal images of animals such as squirrels, red foxes and hares. The children can identify with their classrooms in this way.
Both in the classrooms and in the spacious corridor, many details underline the child-friendly design. For instance the perforated wooden panels with fitting wooden hooks allow children to divide their cloakroom wall according to their heights and individual preferences. The flooring, fittings and furniture are made of solid, robust and sustainable materials: such as the industrial parquet that gives the rooms on the upper level a workshop character, or the oak bench in front of the entrance, which was made of wood from the municipal forest. On the ground floor, both the corridor flooring and the stairs to the upper level consist of polished, black poured asphalt. The choice of these durable and therefore sustainable materials reduces their maintenance requirements; together with the wooden cladding made of ash and oak, they radiate a sense of warmth and security. To allow the exposed concrete ceiling to be as visible as possible, the walls of the cloakrooms in the corridor were clad with perforated wooden acoustic boards, while the classroom walls were covered with veneer or wooden fitted shelving. The visible concrete ceilings have the advantage of acting as a storage mass, thereby considerably contributing to the comfortable atmosphere in the summer months. The cool air induced by the controlled ventilation at night cools the ceilings. During the day, the ceiling cools the rooms. There is also the aspect of sustainability, since the individual building elements are more easily recycled. Furthermore, the aesthetics of the materials should be understandable. Thus we deliberately suspended the LED lighting directly from the concrete ceiling. To improve the illumination for the central corridor, a skylight opens up above the final flight of stairs. A band of lighting is also integrated into the handrail of the stairs. The open character of the building creates an ideal learning atmosphere with diversely used and organised rooms for children and teaching staff. At the same time, the new building by Brandenberger Kloter Architekten creates an ensemble that forms a new school campus and a centre for the whole community.
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SCHOOL AARWANGEN AARWANGEN, SWITZERLAND 2019-2021 Client Municipality of Aarwangen Total built area 2’412 sqm. Site area 1’623 sqm. Architecture Brandenberger Kloter Architects In Collaboration: André Campos | Joana Mendes Team Adrian Kloter / Head of Project Dominique Marc Herzog / Project Architect Oliver Brandenberger André Campos Landscape Architect Stauffer Rösch Landschaftsarchitekten Construction Management Daniel Kieliger Bauleitung Structural Engineer PlusStatik GmbH Electrical Engineer and Light Designer Bering AG Heating / Plumbing / Ventilation Engineer Häusler Ingenieure AG Acoustic / building physics Engineer Buri Bauphysik & Akustik AG Light Designer Hübscher Gestaltet GmbH Signage Designer Riederer Gestaltet GmbH
Images © Basile Bornand / www.fotopraxis.click © Jose Campos / page 06, 12, 18, 23, 31, 33, 41, 43, 58
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