Altstadt-Nord educational landscape BAN

2013-2020

In Cologne, on the edge of an inner-city park, a network of various educational institutions is being created, the ‘Altstadt Nord educational landscape’. In addition to the existing grammar school and evening grammar school, five new buildings were realised by gernot schulz : architektur: an extension for a listed primary school, a day care centre, a secondary school as well as a study building and a canteen and studio building, which are available for use by all institutions as so-called composite buildings. The interweaving of uses raises the question of the relationship between school and public space anew. The answer: an ensemble of several buildings whose intermediate spaces are defined as public space. Only the day care centre and primary school still have protected outdoor spaces, while the secondary school uses the existing park as its schoolyard. The public space thus borders directly on all the educational buildings, allowing citizens to enter into a direct dialogue with the buildings, their interiors and thus the elementary good of ‘education’.

The regular pentagon represents the aspect ratio of the golden ratio. In science, music and art, this in turn reflects harmonious and natural laws. For the rooms of the BAN, the superficially formal approach of adding the pentagons shows the greatest liveliness and aesthetic strength: sometimes in a singular inner logic (study building), sometimes in dynamic spatial sequences of the corridor areas, which repeatedly open up possibilities for individual use in niches and room expansions. Clusters are created for the individual year groups. Learning, recreation and identification spaces in which contemporary learning can take place in changing forms and methods of teaching. For the public spaces, the unparalleled facades of the buildings enable an urban density that is not perceived as ‘too narrow’ due to the dynamic of widening and narrowing, but rather brings educational institutions and public space together to form urban space.