Marcel Baumgartner

Renovation and extension of the Röhrliberg secondary school . Cham

Marcel Baumgartner Architekten . photos: © Roland Bernath

The renovation and extension of the Röhrliberg school in Cham pursues both a holistic and bold approach to a protected building.

Relevance
The project is intended to be exemplary for the preservation and further development of a well-established architecture from the second half of the 20th century. In the process, many challenges found in contemporary architecture are condensed: densification, modification and addition instead of demolition, preservation of substance and recycling, resource-saving construction, differentiated energetic strategies, integrated earthquake retrofitting, the flexibility of use against the background of changing pedagogical concepts, etc. The project is at the same time about the pleasure of the building and the need to preserve it. It involved the joyful rediscovery of an architecture of the early 1970s and the appreciation of the work of the recently deceased local architect Josef Stöckli.

Urban planning and architectural approach
The main concept for the renovation and extension of the Röhrliberg school campus is based on the precise spatial and architectural grammar of the existing complex. The various parts of the building and the campus as a whole were led into a new phase of life through careful maintenance of the existing substance, targeted interventions and self-evident additions. The aim was to bring the interventions into harmony with the existing spatial and atmospheric qualities, thereby strengthening the identity of the site for the future.
The following principles, among others, were identified as decisive and were pursued further: In terms of urban planning, the site is laid out as a classic campus, with the courtyard-like outdoor spaces enclosed by buildings in an charged relationship with the surrounding green space. The morphology of the campus and the individual buildings is based on an overarching fundamental geometric order and a uniform system of dimensions, the origin of which lies in the module of the brick. Its spatial structures are formed by the addition of individual parts. The staggering of the heights describes a hierarchy among the different parts of the building and creates superordinate spatial relationships. The ensemble is characterised by a uniform language of form, its massive construction and homogeneous use of materials.

Spatial enlargement
The expansion of the main school building, Röhrliberg I, to enable the building to offer an appropriate space for a contemporary school, was realised through two new slender six-storey wings and newly added storeys. The two new wings follow the structure of the existing building and continue its cluster-like structure in the floor plan by each adding one new classroom per floor.
In contrast, the addition of a new upper storey sets a vertical accent and strengthens the presence of the delicate building of Röhrliberg I in contrast to the more massive volume of Röhrliberg II.
The auditorium, which is the heart of the complex, is retained in its current form. The new library is arranged as a long, slender structure on top of the previously single-storey volume alongside the sports hall, with a view over the courtyard. The new library is accessed via the entrance and the foyer by the auditorium, with a newly added, wide single-flight staircase which leads directly to the upper floor.

Clusters made by the new additions
In the main school building itself one new classroom is added by each wing, while one of the two existing classrooms is used for the new group rooms. Due to the position of the extensions, the spacious anteroom, which no longer has to accommodate temporary group rooms, can be naturally lit through the existing windows. The new group rooms are each located between two classrooms and can be accessed directly from the classrooms, independently of the anteroom.
The new constellation of anteroom, two classrooms and two group rooms and the folding partitions, wing and sliding doors in between form a highly flexible and multipurpose cluster of rooms. In addition, the extensions play a central role in the earthquake bracing of the structure of the whole building.
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