Wendland School

Dannenberg

competition 2001 - purchase


The site of the Wendlandschule is situated at the edge of a landscape interface  -  the transition of dense forest to open field. A spacial situation which offers manifold experiences and activates natural human instincts:  on the one hand shelter of the trees and on the other hand desire for wide open spaces.
Due to structure and orientation of the specific building elements underneath the wide roof, the described landscape qualities are integrated into the building itself. Once the exterior space is lead to the very interior rooms, another time a greenhouse is cut out of the roof, the natural landscape always is taken as a setting. Inside becomes outside and outside becomes inside. Glazing facades between the structural elements are forming a hardly perceivable boundary from interior to exterior space. Thus the Wendlandschule becomes a spot situated in the landscape.
Underneath a unifying roof the classes of the different grades are grouped as independent units, accessible by a hallway passing through. To the class rooms of the different grades sanitary houses and adjoining buildings are added. The classrooms are oriented to the wide field, in view of the quiet landscape scenery of the marshland.