(BDT_13_028) Pistorius School for Disabled Children

Description

The architects won the commission in a competition run by the municipal government of the Heidenheim district. Their two key ideas were to shape a supportive educational environment and to integrate the school into its natural setting. In consultation with school staff, the initial ideas developed and matured around the concept of the ‘family house’. This family house concept provides a sense of the individual school areas, whilst also maintaining its identity as a single institution through a coherent architectural language. The scale and general organisation supports teachers in their role as surrogate parents. Each classroom or ‘home’ is expressed as an independent entity, whilst physically connected to and being an integral part of the whole institution. Scaled-down furniture, natural timber finishes, red and white desks, sunny wall colours and clean uncluttered rooms provide a safe haven. The symbolic hearth in each classroom area is a central point covered by a barrel-vaulted skylight that filters daylight into the heart of each individual ‘family’ space.

However, that is not the end of the story. Since education is essentially a social experience, outside the home, students should become aware of the wider world. The classroom blocks are loosely formed into a U shape, enclosing outside spaces. Here there are ready connections to other adjacent classrooms and internal mini courtyards. From the security of their ‘homebases’ they can venture out into the slightly less secure yet protected terraces and landscaped mini courtyards which relate spatially to each classroom. The protective layering extends towards the wider context. For example on its south side, a block of administrative offices are positioned as a buffer to the road, the public world outside. Thus the private realm of the school is separated and protected by the physical shape of the architecture. The communal heart of the complex is the entrance foyer, a village square where children and teachers cross paths during the day and where concerts and plays can be staged.

The horizontally orientated structure is simply articulated in its natural and renewable building materials. It is a composite structure of timber paneled frames braced with reinforced concrete. However, the feel is of a predominantly timber building, which is appropriate both in terms of the site on the edge of the Swabian forest, and because of the local industry focusing on timber engineering and the production of furniture. Free floor plans without load bearing walls ensure that the building is readily adaptable to a range of different functions and layouts. It is a building which can be easily expanded in the future. For the moment it is a charming and humane environment ideally suited to the practical and spiritual needs of its users. This kind of architecture does not come cheap, probably four times the cost of a traditional school building, however it is a mark of a humane society recognising the special needs of those with little or no voice in society.

The technology of the building is worthy of further mention. With its compact, deep-plan pavilion arrangement, the necessity to get both natural light and ventilation into the centre of the development is critical, in order to maintain comfort and assert the light open ethos of its woodland setting. The designers were particularly aware of the ventilation problems surrounding the therapy pool area, with its high air change requirements. They were also careful to avoid the deadening institutional feel of the dark airless central circulation corridor, a common mistake in many schools which adopt a double aspect classroom arrangement.

The cross section showing dining hall, entrance hall and therapy pool is a good illustration of the natural ventilation system at work, which the scheme adopts to counter the deep plan throughout; solar penetration within the hall is controlled yet also facilitated by way of high level automatically opening clearstory windows, to provide a warming atmosphere (with the added benefit of relaxing views towards the forest canopy beyond for those floating in the pool), whilst ventilated rooflights in the adjacent rooms enable the exhaust air to be sucked out by the ‘stack’ effect (where the surface of the rooflight heats up and attracts the hot air by way of convection).

Similarly, the section through the classroom and community area is aired by a broken roof line with a high level floating linear rooflight over the corridor/circulation zone. This provides natural ventilation which runs through the classroom section from east to west with low level ventilation sucked in through the classroom perimeter windows. Specially designed high level acoustically treated ventilation baffles along the corridor walls are provided so that the necessary separation for acoustic privacy is facilitated without sacrificing the need for continuous ventilation. Perimeter windows are protected from the sun and the rain by a projecting roof line together with extending solar canopies on all south- or west-facing elevations.

This is a mature building which has a sustainability ethos at its core. It is not ‘high tech’ or obvious in its use of technology, yet it is a technically highly intelligent design which has taken a great deal of development within its system build approach. This is very much a ‘touchy, feely’ piece of architecture, it almost melts into the background. It marries timber design with the need for privacy and community to create something which is inherently comfortable for its users. The flexible nature of its technology is complemented by the environmental strategy which is sustainable and easy to control locally. The ordered clarity of each and every element on show to the users reinforces the idea of the building as a visual narrative, a lesson in its own right, which orientates and calms its users, so that they can concentrate on the important task of their own social and educational development.