Johann Peter Hebel Elementary School

New construction of an all-day primary school
Restricted competition 2023
Client: Municipality of Gundelfingen
Team: Armin Behles, Jasper Jochimsen, Sebastian Nordmeyer, Anatol Rettberg, Simon Stahnke
Landscape architects: Topos, Berlin
Structural planning and fire protection: Pirmin Jung, Remagen
Visualization: Grauwald, Berlin
Model: Maquette, Berlin

Four houses share a green roof. Organized according to the split-level principle, it is possible to incorporate the existing topography and naturally integrate the higher cafeteria. There are two precisely positioned main entrances between the learning houses, one in the axis of Hebelstrasse and one towards the schoolyard. The learning clusters are designed as spatially independent units and are connected to each other on the ground floor by an entrance hall where the common functions are located. Wood - in combination with exposed concrete and other natural materials - shapes the character of the school inside and out.

In order to reconcile the large building volume with the smaller-scale surroundings, the building volume is divided into four houses that are moved one inside the other, the size of which is derived from the learning clusters. The volumetry and the roof landscape follow the course of the terrain. The south-western learning house is set half a storey higher in consideration of the topography; the north-eastern learning house shares the ground floor level with those to the north-west and south-east, but appears lower due to its two-storey structure despite the higher cafeteria.

You enter the school from the street and from the schoolyard via spacious vestibules that are offset from one another. Inside, a hall connects the two access cores, which have light coming in from above. The entrances to the cafeteria, the art and music department as well as the administration and teaching areas are clearly arranged in the hall. Above this, the two staircases provide access to the floors that are offset from one another on half floors. The forums of the learning clusters are illuminated via transparent walls in both the external rooms and the atriums.

The building is designed as a hybrid timber construction. There is no basement. Only the floor slab and the circulation cores are made of reinforced concrete. In the base area, the facades are covered with fiber cement. Above the facade is clad with wooden panels.