Description

NKBAK architects turned to prefabricated modular timber construction when faced with the task of an urgently needed school building for 400 children within just 16 months. Planning for the European School in Frankfurt am Main began in December 2013 and the finished building was completed by the end of the Easter holidays in 2015. Together with the modular timber construction specialists from Kaufmann Bausysteme in Vorarlberg, Austria, NKBAK developed a school made of timber room modules. 98 modules for classrooms (a standard classroom consists of three modules), toilets and washrooms and staircases were prefabricated by a timber construction firm in Styria, Austria and the modules then transported to Frankfurt’s Nordweststadt. In Frankfurt, the contractor then stacked the modules on top and next to each other to construct the shell of the school in only three and half weeks.
Having demonstrated that a school can be built quickly to a high-quality standard using the means of fabrication, it was no surprise that architects were soon asked to repeat the process elsewhere. In 2017, a temporary building for the Kalbach-Riedberg Integrated Comprehensive School was completed.
In March 2017, the architects were commissioned to design a first school in Berlin using the same principle, and by August 2019, it was ready for use. Unlike the projects in Frankfurt, this Integrated Secondary School in Mahlsdorf was intended as a permanent building from the outset. More schools in Berlin followed: two primary schools in Konrad-Wolf-Strasse in the Berlin district of Lichtenberg (2019) and then the Primary School in Sewanstrasse in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde (2020). The second of these two primary schools in the Sewanstrasse was ready for occupancy in February 2020. The layout of the site made it possible to more clearly articulate the staggered floor plan as “houses” for each of the three parallel classes. This division is also visible in the school interior. Unlike the other schools in the series, the linoleum flooring of the corridor is not uniformly neutral but changes to reflect the colour of the respective staircase and the lounge niches. Each parallel school group therefore has its own colour. The overlapping panels of the façade in the Sewanstrasse is made of 14-cm-wide boards of Douglas fir, the same wood that was used for the Integrated Comprehensive School at Kalbach-Riedberg in Frankfurt.

Originally published in Bauwelt 09.2020, pp. 40-47, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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