Special School in Schwechat, Austria
Fasch& Fuchs
This special school designed by Fasch & Fuchs Architects is a place where 81 children with disabilities can grow and learn in a safe and caring environment wrapped in the enclosure of a building designed with an ambitious attitude towards natural sunlight. The positive effects of natural daylight benefit the learning and development of these children who live and enjoy their time here. Located in Schwechat, a town southeast of Vienna in Austria, this school sits proudly on the landscape.This building started construction in January 2005 and was fully completed in August of the following year. Costs came in at €7.7 million.(6)
At the core of the design concept was an idea about keeping the children at the focus of the project. The children needed an environment to which they could interact with each other and feel a sense of community and involvement. To this extent, a key design element of this building is that all corridors are open and look into or over other areas so the children can see and experience other students and staff as the move throughout the building, A large staircase is extended through three floors and is placed beside a glass wall looking out to the external gardens. This way the children are exposed to the people on three floors and the nature outside of the building as they move internally. The open stairs allows for light and sound to penetrate through the interior spaces of the building.
This school is built in an area that is very close to urban life, with lots of noise pollution and fumes from the traffic on the nearby roads. As with the nature of the students in the school this component of the project was vital to tackle. To this effect the winter gardens at the south of the building were fitted with soundproofing materials so that the comfort of the children was not compromised. As evident from the section of the building below, they were focused n getting as much natural daylight into the interior of the building as possible. They wanted it to reach all the way into the gymnasium at the centre of the building as it was a key central space that the children used to interact with each other and exercise on rainy days or whenever the weather was unsuitable for them to enjoy the outdoors.
As pictured below, the corridors of this school are flooded with natural light from the skylights that stretch the length of the building. The white colour on the walls then reflect this light into the central gymnasium space. Without the introduction of these skylights these hallways would be very dark and unwelcoming spaces. The soft and subtle specularity of the floors also reflects a small amount of light helping to soften the surface of the concrete ceiling about the core gymnasium space of the school. On the other side of these corridors are smaller private chillout zones, where the children can relax if the excitement and noise of the gymnasium becomes too overwhelming. However much like the bright and airy space of the hallways, these breakout rooms have an extension of that very same roof light that extends into them, allowing the natural sunlight to access even the more private and quite spaces that the children use.
The swimming pool is yet another communal facility which the children enjoy. As may of them find freedom in the mobility that the water provides it was only fitting that an exciting space be designed. The roof contains a strip of skylight that expands and folds over the side of the building, finishing out the façade and anchoring the building into the ground. The glass wall allows the children to enjoy the view out into nature outside as they enjoy their swim. They can see everything including the sky above them as they float in the water. As there is a lot of light, colour and movement taking place in this space it is fitting that the rest of the ceiling is covered with timber. If that ceiling had been white the space could seem too bight as the water in the swimming pool is very reflective and that along with the natural sunlight that shines through the glass wall, may have created a space that was uncomfortably bright and startling to walk into for the children.
When the sun is at its highest in the sky the heat from it can make it uncomfortable to sit in certain spaces. In order to tackle this problem on the south façade of the building there are overhanging screens which absorb the majority of the heat and provide a shadow of cool shelter. These panels are slatted and still allow the natural daylight to filter through creating a decorative pattern that adds another creative element to the building. The choice of the wooden floor in this area is also another wise choice as in this case it is not polished and reflects very little light. Therefore, a space that usually would be too bright, warm and uncomfortable to sit or relax in has been designed by the architects who have sculpted a beautiful outdoor seating area for the staff of the school to take a break from their work. When the weather becomes wet or windy then the glass wall can be pulled across to complete the envelope of the building and keep in the internal heat in the colder weather.
References
6. fasch&fuchs.architekten | sonderschule schwechat [Internet]. [cited 2020 Oct 10]. Available from: https://faschundfuchs.com/index.php?top=bauten&sub=sonderschule
Images: https://velcdn.azureedge.net/-/media/com/daylight%20and%20architechture%20-%20doga/pdf/da06_complete.pdf
https://faschundfuchs.com/index.php?top=bauten&sub=sonderschule
