VALHØJ SKOLE - Extensions to existing buildings
Valhøj School accommodates children from ages 6 to 16 and has a sports profile. The existing campus is laid out on a generous site in the outskirts of Copenhagen. Due to a huge growth in student numbers in the coming years, the school requires extension through the addition of two new buildings and a re-think of the organization. The design strategy for developing the new extensions of the school was based on 3 main criteria:
The Campus: Analyzing how the existing separate, yet interconnected building masses are placed , like a campus, with the main building as the central focus, it was decided to work with the new extensions in a similar way :
The new extensions are placed freely, and detached from the existing buildings, with only small connection points via internal footbridges suspended in the air between the buildings. This way, the design allows for free movement all the way around the buildings and the placement retains the main building as focal point.
Opening up and diminishing the physical borders: The existing school was built in 1958 and the physical, spatial boundaries are clearly defined. The vision is to open up these boundaries and create fluid connections between new types of teaching spaces and recreational zones. Thus allowing more opportunities to learn through play and movement both inside and by opening up to outdoor areas.
In addition, there is great potential in re-thinking the use of the extensive school grounds. Instead of being an enclosed area only for use by the school it is transformed and opened up to the immediate context to create an urban park. In that way creating opportunities for sport, exercise, and movement for not just the school but the whole community.
A school with a sports profile: Valhøj School has a sports profile and also offers a special education at secondary school level for children with a talent for a particular sport. Therefore the 3rd. strategy was for the new architecture to be dynamic and to encourage movement, play and exercise, underpinning the school’s sports profile. The new additions will bring a new life that radiates energy, movement, play and synergy to the existing buildings.
As the school faces a new era the opportunity arose to develop the school as a framework for new pedagogical visions. Both interior and exterior spaces have been designed so they are flexible in relation to different learning environments and embrace new ways of learning in flexible spaces and zones.
This is done, for example, by programming areas to be used for various functions, such as, when an interior or exterior staircase can also be a small auditorium, a break room can become a learning zone and the in-between spaces can be used for concentration niches and group learning zones.
The focus has been to work with balances between openness, identity, connectivity, flexibility and dynamism, while at the same time allowing for spaces for concentration, immersion and confidentiality.
The Campus: Analyzing how the existing separate, yet interconnected building masses are placed , like a campus, with the main building as the central focus, it was decided to work with the new extensions in a similar way :
The new extensions are placed freely, and detached from the existing buildings, with only small connection points via internal footbridges suspended in the air between the buildings. This way, the design allows for free movement all the way around the buildings and the placement retains the main building as focal point.
Opening up and diminishing the physical borders: The existing school was built in 1958 and the physical, spatial boundaries are clearly defined. The vision is to open up these boundaries and create fluid connections between new types of teaching spaces and recreational zones. Thus allowing more opportunities to learn through play and movement both inside and by opening up to outdoor areas.
In addition, there is great potential in re-thinking the use of the extensive school grounds. Instead of being an enclosed area only for use by the school it is transformed and opened up to the immediate context to create an urban park. In that way creating opportunities for sport, exercise, and movement for not just the school but the whole community.
A school with a sports profile: Valhøj School has a sports profile and also offers a special education at secondary school level for children with a talent for a particular sport. Therefore the 3rd. strategy was for the new architecture to be dynamic and to encourage movement, play and exercise, underpinning the school’s sports profile. The new additions will bring a new life that radiates energy, movement, play and synergy to the existing buildings.
As the school faces a new era the opportunity arose to develop the school as a framework for new pedagogical visions. Both interior and exterior spaces have been designed so they are flexible in relation to different learning environments and embrace new ways of learning in flexible spaces and zones.
This is done, for example, by programming areas to be used for various functions, such as, when an interior or exterior staircase can also be a small auditorium, a break room can become a learning zone and the in-between spaces can be used for concentration niches and group learning zones.
The focus has been to work with balances between openness, identity, connectivity, flexibility and dynamism, while at the same time allowing for spaces for concentration, immersion and confidentiality.