Erich-Kästner Schule

Two offset three-storey structures blend in harmoniously with the gentle slope of the Laichingen school campus. Together with the two-storey pavilion housing the new canteen and complementary all-day care facilities, the new building complex creates highly usable, differentiated outdoor spaces and marks the new entrance to the Laichingen school campus, visible from afar. Both the new community school and the canteen are being built as sustainable timber structures with a protective timber-aluminium façade and integrated light-coloured textile sun protection.
The three-storey new building for the community school blends into the striking slope of the gently eastward-sloping terrain with two structures offset from each other in height and orientation. The difference in height is used to organise access via ‘split levels’, i.e. half-storey levels offset from each other, around a central hall, similar to the existing school buildings on the campus. The central hall connects all floors with each other. It receives plenty of light from above and from the sides and is the space that connects everything in the new comprehensive school. The entrance area on level 0 can be combined with the multi-purpose room and the music room to form a spacious foyer. This opens to the right onto an inviting staircase with seating, which can be used as a tribune for events or performances in the foyer.

Both the new community school and the canteen are constructed as timber frame buildings on a basic grid of 8.40 m x 8.40 m. The extension grid built on top of this is 1.30 m x 1.30 m. The roofs are extensively vegetated and additionally equipped with solar panels to make use of solar energy. The construction allows for great flexibility in the planning and subsequent use of the buildings. The ceilings, individual wall elements and roofs will be constructed from solid wood elements. The timber construction allows for rapid erection of the buildings on site with a high degree of prefabrication in the workshop. Both the supporting structure and most of the interior surfaces, such as floors, ceilings and walls, will be made of wood.