Description

For a long time Herman Hertzberger has been designing schools which are closely related to the local community. He has pioneered the notion of the multi-storey villa form which optimises the tight site constraints of building in a city like Amsterdam. However, it is the first time he has actually combined a school with a housing block to create a new highbred form of school architecture. It is an approach which is more usually seen in the provision of early years centres, smaller, more distinctive buildings than the typical primary school, which can sit comfortably with housing or other more commercial facilities.

Located on one of the most attractive sites in Amsterdam, the block is surrounded by water, as the name De Eilanden suggests. Included as part of a complex of eight high cost homes, the school was carved out of the two ground floors of this exclusive urban living block. So rather than having a free-standing institutional form entitled ‘the school’, pupils attend an institution which is integrated and subsumed into the housing block, with all the cost benefits and the advantages this bestows, not least of which is the possibility to share this marvellous site with another user. However, the architecture of the school is not quiet and conservative (like the housing above which was designed by a different architect). Rather it seems to slip out from beneath the housing at every opportunity, with bays, stairs, porches and play areas extending the accommodation from out beneath the skirts of the red brick housing blocks above.

Access to the building is from the lower school hall. This double-height hall is the focus of school activity; passing the main auditorium you enter into this so-called urban plaza, which visually connects upper and lower level and provides a flexible gathering space, a communal hall, an indoor play area or a space to hang out. The architect’s sketch shows the concept of the bisection, with sunlight reflected down into the heart of the plan, beamed in from the deep cut along the centre of the block, magnified by the use of highly reflective ceramic tiles on the wall surfaces. The design somewhat resembles an ocean liner, with walkways and stairs to create a beautiful promenade of routes in and around the teaching accommodation. The school’s ten classrooms are ranged across the rear south-facing façade, each with its own wet zone outside the classroom which shows as a widening of the corridor/circulation area. Some of the classrooms have decks and balconies, which act as escape routes as well as extended learning areas outside the classroom. It is a playful yet highly disciplined form of architecture which avoids the institutional feel of many school buildings. The limitations of building next to the housing has forced the architect to adopt clever devices to ensure the school is never too constrained by its partner accommodation. Thus he created a building which is contained but generous and full of modulated light, producing an all the more dramatic spatial experience.

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