1st Prize: Competition Windischeschenbach Primary and Middle School
In collaboration with .atelier coa & Patrick Sandner
Urban Design
The proposal creates an urban design solution that mediates between the standalone buildings of the existing educational campus, the neighbouring small-scale single-family housing estate and the nearby town centre. At the same time, the distinctive existing topography is understood as an opportunity and forms the basis for a school building that opens out in all directions.
The building volume establishes a clear address to the east, facing the existing and future bus stop on Neustädter Straße. While the clear internal structure ensures excellent orientation for the pupils, the building volumes create “pockets” in the outdoor areas that provide space for a variety of playful open-space qualities.
The reorganisation of the site and the carefully developed levels of the planned volumes result in a building that is partly single-storey and predominantly two-storey, with clearly identifiable learning houses. With its three wings, oriented exclusively toward the open spaces, and its carefully developed proportions, the school forms a welcoming, friendly and appropriately scaled environment for the children of the region.
School Building and Learning Houses
The new primary and middle school is characterised by short routes and avoids long corridors, ensuring clear orientation throughout the building. The open, light-filled assembly hall adjoining the entrance platform forms the communicative centre of the school and culminates in the central school courtyard. Both areas are connected by a central hall, providing the necessary space for a variety of school and extracurricular events.
Shared facilities, specialist classrooms and the vertical circulation areas are all arranged around the assembly hall and open onto it to the required extent. Voids between the floors create engaging visual connections, bring natural daylight into the interior and provide additional orientation.
The learning areas are distributed across three learning houses, consisting of two primary-school clusters and one middle-school cluster. All three houses are equally accessible via the central circulation area in the foyer, each presenting a clearly identifiable entrance facing the shared “circulation hall.”
The design concept of an open, communicative and adaptable central zone is continued within each learning house. The entrance area contains cloakrooms and a decentralised work base for teaching staff. This supports flexible teaching across class groups while providing a high degree of social overview and visibility.
The multifunctional common area, as the “centre of the cluster,” serves as a space for encounters, movement and communication for both pupils and teachers. Classrooms with group rooms are arranged flexibly and openly around the central zone, creating a high degree of transparency. Changes within individual year groups can also be implemented easily.
Outdoor Areas
A spacious, traffic-free forecourt is located directly along Neustädter Straße. From the retained bus stop, the space expands via a series of open, staggered outdoor steps with integrated seating leading to the entrance. A ramp with seating areas and intermediate platforms provides barrier-free access and completes the range of facilities.
The drop-off lane along Neustädter Straße allows parents to let their children out safely in front of the school without crossing traffic routes.
The outdoor areas of the new school are predominantly landscaped and green, surrounding the new building ensemble. A school garden protected within the landscaped areas to the north-west provides space for nature-based educational activities.
The new, generously sized schoolyard offers areas for play, exercise and relaxation. It is located away from the surrounding residential buildings and protected from noise, next to the existing historic building wing, with which the new building will form a unified architectural ensemble in the future.
