Description

In the design of Kvernhuset Junior High School sustainability is viewed as being a crucial aspect of the pedagogy. As a consequence, the building adopts a range of active and passive features which optimise on key aspects of energy and lighting usage. The building is set in a rocky, lightly forested valley. The three main wings of teaching accommodation and the gymnasium located slightly further down the hill are cut dramatically into the granite hillside, half buried by the cut-and-fill landscaping, half floating above it. Accommodation is organised on two levels with servicing spaces on the ground floor. These include administration, the main common room, music and drama, home economics, teacher’s offices and arts and crafts. At first floor level the main teaching areas are organised in year ‘homebase’ groups, each wing having its own common room. Students enter the building directly into their own classbases with three separate entrances in each wing.

The three wings of accommodation, which relate to the three year groups at first floor level, are colour coded with a subtle strain of yellow, green or blue. These colour themes help to articulate a site-related architectural narrative; the yellow wing containing classrooms focuses on energy, primarily on the active and passive use of solar energy. Solar cells capture energy which is in turn monitored by pupils as part of their energy studies. The green wing has an ecological focus with the evident use of re-cycled materials. The presence of planting both inside and in the courtyards outside further emphasises this idea. The blue wing of accommodation focuses on water, harvesting it from the roof, and grey water recycling in toilets and washbasins.

Teachers asked for standard classrooms which could be divided down for use by smaller groups and opened up to effect open-plan arrangements when appropriate. This flexibility is achieved through the use of sliding folding wall panels alongside fixed solid partitions surrounding toilets, offices and small group rooms. Although there are some concerns regarding acoustic separation between classrooms, overall this arrangement enables a variety of group sizes which keeps teaching sessions fresh and stimulating. One of the key school spaces outside the classroom is a library. Situated at the centre of the building, it also acts as a circulation route for the entire school. The common area is for ‘hanging out’ between lessons and as a lunchtime restaurant space. Adjacent is the music room; with its sliding wall it can be used as a stage for concerts and to further enlarge the area for community activities.

The pleasure of this school lies especially in its harmonious relationship to its natural setting. The varied furniture layouts in the home base learning wings are reminiscent of leaves on the forest floor, simultaneously orderly yet random. Approaching the building one crosses a bridge which straddles a wildlife pond. Holes drilled directly into the rock provide geo-thermal energy. The bark from trees cut down to clear the site has been utilised as facings for columns in the main hall. These trees are used in a rough unfinished form in the main façades, a counterfoil to the concrete framework, an appropriate combination of the natural and the man-made.

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