Vrå Children and Culture Centre

Vrå

GOAL no. 3, 4, 11, 12, 17

The combined school, children’s and culture building in Vrå is an active meeting place for locals of all ages.

Many rural municipalities are facing population decline, and families with children are particularly difficult to attract. This makes it difficult to maintain schools and everyday life in small towns and villages.

Hjørring Municipality has been losing inhabitants for years and has had to close several small schools. However, the small town of Vrå has built a new, contemporary school that also houses a day-care facility, a play area for private registered child-minders, a music school, a continuation school, and a sports hall. Thus, the building offers a coherent setting for children from infancy to the last day of lower secondary school. The building, which has woodland on all sides, also contains a library and a municipal service centre and is thus an asset to the entire local community.

The school consists of clusters placed around a common ‘heart’. The architecture is inspired by the different levels of a forest: forest floor, tree trunks, tree crowns. Indoors and outdoors flow into one, and tree trunks become columns inside the ‘heart’, while the crowns form the roof structure. Timber elements in the exterior walls and roof form a connection with the nearby woodland and contribute to reduce the building’s carbon footprint.

The building was designed as a setting for learning, culture, movement, leisure and socializing with fluid boundaries among the activities. However, the nursery, kindergarten and school have their own separate entrances to provide calm, safe transitions between the children’s ‘home base’ and the communal areas.

This project demonstrates how a wide range of activities can be placed under one roof with an emphasis on children’s development, play and learning. By gathering essential daily and weekly activities under one roof, a strong meeting place has been created, thus supporting local life.

Project details

Where: Idræts Alle 1, 9760 Vrå

Completed: 2021

Client: Hjørring Municipality

Architects: AART (main), JAJA Architects (subconsultant and landscape) Søren Jensen Rådgivende Ingeniørfirma (engineer)