Mary Poppins Primary School

Mark Dudek

Description

The school is a central component of the infrastructure for a new residential zone currently under construction. The site is the former military airfield of Gatow on the west bank of the River Havel, Berlin. A key element of this development is a large meadow which has been retained and enhanced to serve as a green ‘lung’ for the new living area. It connects the existing lake to a new park. The meadow and park are bounded by a strip of new housing. The school is situated between the housing and the meadow, to serve the children and families. It is very much at the heart of this new eco-friendly community.

The detached volumetric of the housing and the school help to structure the public open spaces, providing views across and between the solid structures. The primary school itself is a U shape with the three built sides forming a courtyard which is open to the south. The three-storey structure forms a protective back to the street on the north side, with a ground floor pedestrian link partly enclosing the courtyard and connecting the east-west axis across the site. This provides links to a sports hall in the east with football pitches and a more traditional playground area to the east. The sports hall is a shared facility, utilised by the school students during the day and the community at night.

Within the school, accommodation is in the form of a double-sided corridor on the two east-west wings with classrooms organised in suites of four from pre-school on the ground floor through to grade six on the third floor. The implication being that the older the child, the higher he or she will be positioned in the building. The teaching administration, staff areas and media/library are at ground floor level within a self-contained ‘adult’ block in the west wing. The entrance itself is an impressive three-storey volume with a gallery bridge link on the two upper levels. It is all connected by an oval feature staircase which creates a dramatic event of moving up and down the building.

The architectural treatment is predominantly 20th century ‘Bauhaus’ modernist with flat roofs and white rendered walls. Colours are subdued, instead the architects have chosen to use materials in their natural state with timber windows, ceiling and wall panels and the subtle use of side and top lighting in circulation and communal areas to create a muted yet striking building. Clearly the architects have taken the issue of way-finding seriously, with circulation areas which are highly modulated spatially, becoming narrower and wider as required and lit to the best dramatic effect. This is a robust structure built to resist the impact of future generations and a building which has an emphatic public presence within the community.