Description

At Søgaard School in Gentofte, Denmark, special care was taken to knit a special
needs school into its physical and social context. Positioned in a suburb of
Gentofte and surrounded by bungalows, the school is part refurbishment and part
new construction. Rather than shoe-horn a larger institution into the
neighbourhood, the architects have broken the building down into domestic-sized
volumes and in doing so have made the learning environment appear like a
collection of houses that have been knocked together. The beauty of such an
idea, particularly appropriate for a special school, is that it becomes a
home-from-home for students. It also enables a series of level changes, range of
openings and thresholds between the adjoining houses in a multitude of informal
learning spaces that offer plenty of niches for children to fit into. Around
every corner is a new opportunity for learning, an example of which is a
soft-play forest area, alongside student’s lockers.

The outside of the building works in a similar way and must feel like playing in
the back yard. The landscape is characterised by natural play equipment, and
variations in ground textures define different zones within the space. The
boundary of the school is carefully created by a hedgerow, which again fits into
the context of carefully maintained gardens, and which is a good alternative to
the high metal fences often in use, further reinforcing the school’s open
outlook. Søgaard School uses a collage of windows to animate the building.
Looking from the outside it is not easy to identify a classroom or where the
sports hall is hidden. Balconies sometimes project from the building and others
are carved out of the gables. The white render reflects daylight and is
complemented with a green shade used as an accent. The simple colour palette
offsets the spatial complexity of the building and stops the building from
becoming visually overwhelming. Indeed, the building is difficult to pick out as
a school from the surroundings. Søgaard School proves that a special school can
integrate seamlessly into a suburban context without the need for sea of grass
and perimeter fencing between it and the surrounding neighbourhood.

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Originally published in: Prue Chiles (ed.), Leo Care, Howard Evans, Anna Holder, Claire Kemp, Building Schools: Key Issues for Contemporary Design, Birkhäuser, 2015.