2nd Prize
Selective Competition for a primary school extension with day-care and double gym
Weyell Zipse Architects with Donet Schäfer Reimer Architects and Studio Vulkan
Future-oriented and low-CO2 spatial development and architecture begins with valuing existing structures and using them for as long as possible. Following this idea, the existing Bottmingen school complex is built upon. In doing so, grown qualities will be preserved and at the same time previously unrecognized potentials will be exploited.
Today, the Bottmingen school complex appears as a collage of individual buildings from different decades without any binding cohesion. With the project “Thousand Plateaus” these fragments are located in a common landscape context and thus strengthened. The existing buildings – the school building from 1907, the extension buildings from the 1950s/60s and the kindergarden from 2014 – form an ensemble with the new buildings, in a natural coexistence of old and new. The expression of the buildings also respects the existing buildings and strives for a diverse but harmonious overall appearance. Layers of time and individual buildings remain legible as such, but are integrated into a holistic interpretation of the site: a school complex as a diverse landscape on “thousand” plateaus. The new buildings are organized on a small site in order not to “block” further developments in the future and at the same time to take into account the great importance of generous open spaces for a school site. With the smallest possible intervention, an effect is to be achieved on several levels: By building directly onto the existing elementary school from the 1950s and continuing its structural order, functional synergies can be exploited in a compact building volume and short distances created. The extension will provide barrier-free access to the existing school complex and, next to additional school space, will also provide a new collective center.
