Description

Back in 1994, architect Gert Wingårdh was commissioned to build a new school in the small town of Nödinge which is roughly 20 kilometers north of Göteborg. The brief was for a new multi-functional secondary school which would also act as a community centre for the town, with a library, theatre, gymnasium and other recreational facilities. In addition, the town wanted a building which was affordable but also architecturally distinctive to help shape the otherwise characterless environment of the town centre. The site strategy entailed the relocation of an existing bus garage which enabled the new school plan to engage with an existing rocky outcrop, an important natural feature within the landscape. This heavily planted area now screens the classrooms from the heavily trafficked area below, as the main classroom wing enfolds the contours of the escarpment. This forms a natural enclosed external play area which is both secure and full of character for students using it, a wilderness garden at the heart of the highly organised school plan. Located on the edge of a medium rise housing project, the mainly two-storey school building features a dramatic butterfly shaped roof over the main entrance block, which breaks the scale of the piece and leads visitors centrally into the rest of the school.

The huge duo-pitched roof features a single rainwater drainage pipe which takes water off the roof at the main entrance. The rainwater then runs across the entrance plaza in a blue tiled open channel, which forms a magnificent stream of water on rainy days. The public entrance stair leads into the upper parts of the most public areas of the school’s accommodation, the library and theatre with related meeting rooms and other public facilities. Just beyond is what the architects describe as the Green Square (actually triangular in shape). This is a type of covered agora, with a café and seating area, an interface between the strictly educational areas and the mixed function public spaces. There you might witness a rock band practicing behind sound proof glass, or look down into the gym or back over the entrance and library. The sequence of spaces continues with several more triangular shaped indoor squares surrounded by balconies. These serve as circulation spaces as well as places for socialising or studying, an organisational strategy that derives more from modern office planning than school design.

In the planning there is a further quirk, the teachers’ offices are withdrawn from their traditional location, that is on guard over the entrance and circulation areas. Instead they are in a more discreet position deep within the building and away from the activities so that teachers themselves have the chance to study and reflect in a calm and privileged position. Instead of treating teachers as policemen on constant patrol, the scheme relies on openness itself to establish the sense of security a school needs: there are no dark corners where bullies can misbehave. Enclosure and visual monitoring by teachers are limited to the classrooms, which are not connected to the common areas except for a carefully sound-insulated opening for ventilation purposes. The view is that these are places for concentration and distractions should therefore be minimal.

---

Originally published in: Mark Dudek, Schools and Kindergartens: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2015.