Description

Hellerup School in Gentofte, a largely post-industrial suburb of Copenhagen,
exemplifies a substantial change in the spatial configuration of schools.
Designed for 640 6–16 year olds, Hellerup School is particularly famous for its
centrally placed wide staircase in an atrium space that forms the main meeting
place for the school. The new configuration of space encouraged new ways of
teaching and learning, treating the students as more mature and independent
learners.

Open-plan teaching areas with spaces with sofas and pods for small groups and
other areas for independent learning encourage informality and foster
collaboration. It should be noted that the head teacher, who briefed the
architects and was there for the opening of the new school, is sure that the new
ways of teaching and new spaces created were more likely to succeed because the
school was completely new. All the staff were new and were recruited for this
experimental approach to teaching in more open environments and so were prepared
to teach in a different way. Also families were moving into the increasingly
wealthy and fashionable residential area of Copenhagen.

However, a few years after opening, the school experienced problems with noise
even though this was expected and addressed with acoustic walls.

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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.