Description

Ørestad College is an established and early part of the windswept new town Ørestad, a world away from central Copenhagen. It is urban, flat, linear and organised around an artificial channel of water. The school, which now has the new town library next to it, is lined up with other large residential and office buildings along the main canal and high-level local train track. The back of the school and the view from the large outdoor raised terrace is of suburban Orestad one and twostorey ‘parcel-huset’ – homes on their own plots, a very Danish scene. As part of the ‘new town’ development, the school is important as a landmark, and hosts social and cultural activities for the local communities.

The spatial and pedagogical innovation of the school is not evident in its external form; it presents itself as a somewhat standard block, clad in a decorated skin. Semi-transparent and etched glass louvres create a responsive façade, which can be adjusted to control daylighting and views. Inside the school is visually arresting, providing a range of inviting, light, flexible and truly inspiring learning environments; these are achieved through intelligent use of structure, spatial organization and furniture. Most dramatic is the wide spiralling timber staircase, creating an open and uplifting spatial feel to the whole volume of the school. It is conceived of as a physical manifestation of the interdisciplinary approach espoused by the school.

The structure of the building uses three huge columns as the primary load-bearing mechanism. This allows for great flexibility in the use of the floor space with wedge-shaped voids in the three upper floor plates positioned at slight rotations to one another, encouraging visual links and greater connection between the different floors and creating double- and triple-height spaces. The atrium is created by these voids. The whole school appears to be one enormous, interesting, cuboid volume. Smaller areas are demarcated or screened with non load-bearing structures, the intention being to allow changes in the way the space is used over time. Specially designed furniture is used to create a range of different spaces, and is designed to move and change to accommodate different group sizes. The spatial organisation of the building is designed around four floors that house the four study zones, with each floor containing a mixture of different sizes and types of learning spaces, fully or semi-enclosed from the open-plan circulation spaces. In the maths area, special pens are used to write on the glazed external walls contributing to the lived-in and educational feel of the place. Furniture ranges from desks and chairs or stools to sofas and large beanbags, allowing flexibility of use and giving students the ability to tailor their own working space to their needs. The circular ‘break-out pods’ are the most popular with children inhabiting these spaces long after school has finished in the afternoon, some doing their homework.

The school operates without traditional classrooms, instead encouraging students to work both individually and in groups in the various informal study areas. This approach is enabled through the provision of wireless networking throughout the building and laptops for all students. Creative use of media and communications technology is part of the school’s pedagogy, and its focus on local and global connectedness through technology has led to the local nickname of the ‘virtual school’. Far from virtual are the specific drama and music spaces, which again are used after school and are full of groups practising music and drama. The school here really seems to balance areas that need to be closed off with the open areas to make an exceptionally comfortable place to be.

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Originally published in: Prue Chiles (ed.), Leo Care, Howard Evans, Anna Holder, Claire Kemp, Building Schools: Key Issues for Contemporary Design, Birkhäuser, 2015.