Description

Close to the centre of the municipality of Zarren in western Belgium lies a 1960s building with gables and turrets that houses a kindergarten and pre-school. A new building was planned for the site that would accommodate the primary school with its six to twelve-year-olds and provide communally usable areas, in the process uniting various school departments previously scattered across different sites. The new building presents itself as an assembly of contrasting parts: a windowless gabled end wall clad in dark grey, diamond-shaped Eternit shingles sits tightly alongside a light-coloured brick façade with regular window openings, eaves line, and a pink concrete ground floor topped by pitched roofs. The architects describe the ensemble as a patchwork.

This is not an expansive learning complex spread across many buildings, but rather an efficiently organised school building that makes the most of the budget constraint of 1700 €/m² (gross). In their competition entry, the architects, FELT, posited that “a good school is a practical school”. Nevertheless, they have succeeded in developing a differentiated set of spaces and visual impressions through the skilful composition of three sections under one roof. One wing houses a compact, serial arrangement of classrooms, knitted together along a corridor. The sports hall, on the other hand, presents a spacious, airy interior. And the compact and expansive spaces are connected by a main passage that organises the entrance and circulation.

The centrepiece is an entry hall with a curved sculptural stair that leads quite naturally up to the gallery. The cafeteria on the gallery level is spanned by a ceiling of open gables, the origami-like folds of which continue on into the roof of the sports hall. Descending into the sports hall is like immersing oneself in a deep green pool. The monochromatic handling of the colour scheme has a powerful atmospheric effect – sheltering, calming and focussing.

That the architects were not afraid to use colour can also be seen in the corridors, galleries and staircases, all of which are boldly chromatic in their colour schemes. Not everyone shares the same enthusiasm for this courageous commitment to colour. The headmaster, for example, is not overly keen on the omnipresent use of pink – and is certainly not alone in this sentiment. He would have favoured more participatory involvement of the children and staff in the design process, and particularly the colour scheme and materials. That said, it is refreshing to see a colour design that is not afraid to depart from the safe, familiar, uniform spectrum of colours seen in most schools, and ultimately it lends the school a particular identity. For that the architects are to be commended. The classrooms are likewise also colourful: the floors are laid with blue linoleum, the walls clad with panels in bright orange and light wood, the gable walls left as grey exposed concrete, while the partition walls and ceilings are painted white. This too produces a stimulating patchwork that is just as non-conformist in its use of colours and materials as the exterior.

Originally published in Bauwelt 2.2020, pp. 30-35, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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