Description

Dettmannsdorf has just about everything a village needs: a large city with a university in the vicinity (Rostock is 30 kilometres to the west), a charming location (the River Recknitz separating Mecklenburg from Vorpommern flows through the undulating landscape at the edge of the village), reasonable transport connections (the A20 motorway is within easy reach but far enough away not to be heard), and in the village itself, everything you need in everyday life: a village shop, services, a restaurant and various clubs. There is very little unemployment, due not just to the employment opportunities but also the qualifications of the residents. The most recent addition to the range of services is therefore also an investment in education: a new building for the primary school. The school is part of an independently run secondary school that will soon be expanded to include a grammar school – likewise unusual for a village of this size in rural north-east Germany.

A few years ago, however, the situation was quite different: the village school closed in 2003; local craftsmen lamented the lack of qualifications among new apprentices, and families with children were leaving the village. The community needed a way to revive the school, as without a school the future of the village looked bleak. The decision to relaunch the school as an independently run Protestant-humanist school met initially with scepticism in the village, says Marika Schmidt, the Berlin-based architect of the new building. But as the school developed, the scepticism waned: starting with one school class in 2005, the school now has almost 400 students from a catchment area of around 25 km. This process of expansion is reflected in the history of the school’s redevelopment: the existing building was first renovated, the outdoor facilities were then redesigned, and finally a new building for the 1.5-class-per-year primary school was built – all within the space of a decade.

What Dettmannsdorf lacked, however, is a building tradition on which one could build. Private farmland has not existed since the Thirty Years War, and the soil was too barren to attract the landowning gentry to take up agriculture. The first wave of development came after 1900 with the new railway line and moderate industrialisation, and the second followed around 1930, when the few farmsteads were dissolved following the Great Depression and the land was given to settlers. Two types of farms were built at that time, an L shaped and a longitudinal farm configuration. These still characterise the villages of the surroundings today, but architecturally they are wholly unspectacular. The same applies to the houses built in GDR times. Marika Schmidt is familiar with these conditions as she grew up herself in Dettmannsdorf. Her aim with the new building was to strike a balance between her own demands with respect to the concept, construction and finish and the modest surroundings: “Too much of a good thing would not have improved the situation, as the existing building would have looked all the shabbier. In addition, the framework for the spatial concept was clear: all-day schooling with different teaching methods, teachers who are present for the entire school day, and rooms that can serve multiple uses to avoid them being empty. In addition, special rooms such as a teaching kitchen and cafeteria, workshop spaces, rehearsal rooms and a multi-purpose hall were needed. To support tourism in the region, and comply with the requirements of the EU LEADER programme, the school also needed to be able to accommodate hiking groups during the school holidays. This last aspect was important as 499,000 € of the 2.4 million euro total cost of construction were to come from subsidies.

Schmidt has accommodated everything in a 68-metre-long, two-storey structure placed on the northern edge of the site to maintain an open area facing the village. Its upper floor cantilevers a further 6.50 metres creating an overhang for break areas sheltered from the rain. All the special functions are located on the ground floor while the actual classrooms are on the upper floor. Corridor space has been kept to a minimum: on the upper floor, the sequence of two classrooms and a north-facing common room creates an enfilade that can be used in its entirety and saves floor space – and thus also construction costs. The savings achieved here made it possible to invest in better materials, for example the rubber flooring costs more than linoleum but is more resilient. Similarly, wooden windows were more expensive than those made of plastic, but cheaper than aluminium profiles. Despite the modest budget of 1300 €/m², nowhere does the building feel cheap.

The spatial division finds its counterpart in the loadbearing structure: The upper floor is designed as a space frame that hangs from the roof slab and rests on concrete slabs arranged offset to one another. This ensures the building could in future be converted for another use: should there no longer be a need for classrooms in the future, the building could be converted into apartments without undue effort.

Originally published in Bauwelt 12.2019, pp. 32-35, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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