Thanks to an intensive participation process with all of the involved – already in the competition phase – we could transform a dark, outmoded school complex into a bright and friendly space of encounters, a place for collective, self-determined, and flexible teaching and learning, which all of the users can identify with.

​

The design process began not with initial negotiations (as such things usually do), but rather during the competition phase, where we discussed the task at hand and its requirements together with 70 teachers over several days of workshops moderated by the architecture studio nonconform. This gave us the opportunity to integrate the teachers’ desires and needs into our design and the subsequent project planning – and in return, our counterparts learned from our many years of experience in building schools.

 

We succeeded in preserving the education center’s historically listed substance, which dates back to 1904/05, but we demolished the small addition for the school custodian as well as the old bathrooms in the interest of more space and transparency. We then filled this newly created space between the historically listed classroom wing and the gymnasium building with generous common areas opening onto the garden.

type of project:

reference project, realized

​

awarding authority:

Infra KG Stadtgemeinde Leoben

​

place:

Leoben, Austria

​

year:

2016-2019

​

cooperation with:

Franz&Sue

(Martino Libisch, Carla Kuhn, Florian Haim, Barbara Wagner)

​

photographed by:

Hertha Hurnaus

​

net usable floor area:

9.400m²