Description

The commission was gained by architects Sivén and Takala as an invited competition winning entry in 1998. During the subsequent development, the design team worked closely with the staff to develop a new building connecting with the existing historic structures dating from 1912 and 1927 respectively and which embraced the needs and sensitivities of the learning community. The school year hinges in particular on one special event, the annual musical, which has a fundamental role to play in the social and educational life of the school.

The school caters for children with mental disabilities and provides a personal learning plan for each of the 70 students in total; this enables individuals to develop at their own pace. However, the sense of a collective belonging to the larger social group is also viewed as an important constituent of the educative process, therefore the school has worked towards larger group events which help students to achieve this sense of belonging. Head teacher Timo Kellman describes this highlight of the school year, the production and performance of a musical: ‘All pupils and staff members are involved in the production either on the stage or otherwise. For about two months, the school is just like a big workshop with the children and teachers rehearsing scenes, drawing, painting, sawing, nailing, sewing and singing…’.

The site comprises two existing timber school-house type buildings which have been skillfully married to the new; in fact, the two historic structures are linchpins, connected by way of a new curved timber building which is architecturally modern, yet fits well with the context. The whole is then given coherence by the curving activity corridor, an interface between the classroom/workshops at the rear and the southwest-facing courtyard. The corridor link is more than a functional device, it is a pathway inter-connecting the individual building sections that house the cafeteria and the workshops. Each has its own role to play when the performance is being prepared, with the music classroom serving as the rehearsal stage, whilst sets and costumes are made in the manual skills workshop. The dressing rooms have a sauna and large full-height mirrors and make-up counters to further enhance the theatricality of it all, whilst confectionary and baking products are made in the domestic science class.

All of this is connected by way of the sinuous link corridor, a promenade for theatrical activity in its own right. The building is constructed and clad in local timber with coloured zinc roofing. However, external and internal cladding are articulated in an architectural form which is modern, and as mentioned previously, harmonious with the existing historic buildings. There is conventional close-boarded cladding in a thin horizontal filigree form which gives a scale and elegance and which helps to humanise the long rear façade. Internally, materials are used in a logical way: acoustic plasterboard paneling to the ceilings and walls to provide display spaces, with natural timber frameworks and windows to the activity corridor and within the multi-purpose hall. It provides a supportive, warm and open atmosphere for intimate learning and social interaction when required.

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