The municipal grammar school on Zusestraße is a newly established school location. The new school building, planned on the eastern edge of Lövenich, has been providing a new educational home for around 780 pupils since last school year, with its two-stream secondary level I and three-stream secondary level II. The complex, which also includes a separate triple sports hall, was designed and planned by the Aachen-based firm Hahn Helten Architektur. The firm developed clear large-scale forms for the school's social cluster structures.

The construction project was to fit in as well as possible with the existing urban context of open development on the outskirts of the town and the solitary buildings in the adjacent industrial estate. To this end, it was translated into two large forms: "school" and "sports hall". The sports hall is located in the northern part of the site and is designed as a solitary structure. The school building, on the other hand, is located in the southern part of the site and is divided into three individually recognisable structures. These are staggered in terms of height and location, thus adequately zoning the various schoolyard, outdoor sports and access areas. The uniformly designed façade is divided into a robust base, made of prefabricated exposed concrete elements, and a trapezoidal sheet metal façade with ribbon windows. The centrally located, two-storey building houses the general functions of the school. These include the educational centre, the canteen, the administration and the self-study centre. This main building, which faces the street, is complemented by two three-storey annexes. The larger one houses grades 5–10 and the science rooms, while the smaller one accommodates grades 11–13 and the arts and creative subject rooms. All three buildings feature recessed inner courtyards: in the main building, this creates a two-storey auditorium, which also defines the communal "heart of the school", while in the other buildings, it creates atriums that provide light and ventilation for the inner functional areas. The educational programme implemented in the new building takes into account the "cluster school" concept of the city of Cologne. Clusters refer to groups of rooms in which learning and teaching rooms are combined with the associated differentiation, recreation and relaxation areas to form clearly identifiable units. In addition to decentralised workspaces for teaching staff, there are circulation and access areas that serve as recreation areas and places for differentiated learning. The direct communication, short distances and clarity that arise in the cluster create a feeling of security and comfort, which is a basic prerequisite for the pupils to feel at home.

www.hahn-helten.de

Photography Credits:

Jens Kirchner
www.jens-kirchner.com

(Published in CUBE Cologne Bonn 04|23)