Over the past years many Swiss municipalities have been introducing the concept of a day-school to their range of educational facilities. A place where school children of all ages can go for breakfast, practice an instrument, play, have lunch together or pursue a hobby after lessons – thus allowing the parents to work full time.
The project is a multifunctional day-school for the small municipality of Orpund near Biel which is to be finished next summer in July 2020. In one flowing main space over two floors the children’s activities change throughout the day as people come and go and call for flexible and creative surroundings. Acoustic curtains and robust wooden walls divide the space to fit the needs of everyone. Built on top of an existing basement of a two-family house, which now houses sanitary installations, the kitchen and storage, the space is enclosed by a sweeping roof on a fine steel structure and a glazed facade. The interior merges with the surrounding garden, creating a playful landscape of hard and soft, rough and smooth, wet and dry. The roof garden completes the spatial continuity of the building, granting an experience not only from inside and around but also from above to fully capture the dialogue between the school and its surroundings.
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