Pistorius-Schule

Narratives

School Fosters Independence for Disabled Children

Program: The new school accommodates 137 children and young people with mental or physical handicaps and 47 staff members in 49,500 square feet. The school’s previous facility was spread out among five locations. Cost was $10 million/$201 per square foot.

Site: A natural park in Herbrechtingen, Germany, on the ‘Schwäbische Alb’.

Design: The young people at this school will learn to manage their lives. The architects created a flexible and open structure, a composition of several small, easily accessible one-story-high buildings offering protected, individual worlds grouped around a central courtyard and linked by an entrance hall with partly glazed roof. Here, one should not think of a ‘building,’ but rather of an open spatial structure, where each area can develop according to its own order. Each structure is independent, but connected to others by communal areas-—an apt metaphor for the students.

Protected areas, which invoke feelings of security, alternate with areas that are more open toward the garden and park. Both the buildings and the natural environment with a small water feature offer numerous opportunities to communicate, to play, and to learn. Terraces for open-air lessons as well as trees and hedges that provide shelter without hiding anything create an atmosphere in which the children can develop their imaginations and their social skills.

Interior spaces are bright with natural light, and colorful with white, yellow, and orange paint. Exposed beams and window frames are natural wood. Blue roofs blend into the sky, while green bases flow into the grass. Canvas sunshades in yellow give a warm glow to the interiors. Forms and colors blend into the site so as to not to overexcite the students or disturb their concentration.

Free floor plans with non-load-bearing walls ensure easy adaptability to changing functions. Flexible multi-purpose areas can be used for special learning activities. They are equipped with kitchens for special food preparation. A music room with movable walls can be transformed into an auditorium for larger events. The room program also includes spaces for medical treatment and therapies. The sports building—-including a pool with a bottom surface that can be raised or lowered as needed-—can be used by external people outside school hours without having to enter the school itself.

Passive environmental aspects are built into the project. Operable windows preclude the need for air conditioning. lanted roofs keep off excess heat. The flat buildings are constructed in a simple manner using regenerative, locally available materials, such as wood, together with reinforced concrete. In the future, the complex can be extended toward the north.

New Building Gives Cohesion to School's Mission

Our school is attended by children and young people who are, due to their learning and development problems, largely dependent on their social environment. Many of these children are also physically handicapped. It is our task to reduce these dependencies and to enable the children and young people to be as independent as possible. Both the individual requirements of the students and the expectations of the society have to be taken into account.

Thanks to the new building, where everything is under one roof, it has become possible to support all children and young people. The school has been designed with a view to supporting the optimum development of the individual child. The students and teachers are closer to each other now and have developed a new community. The collaboration between the staff members has quickly become more intensive. Opinions and experiences can be exchanged more easily, and this collaboration is to the benefit of the academic efforts.

We attempt to educate the students in the most different fields through holistic and project-oriented teaching. This means a kind of teaching that is characterized by self-determination and students’ own activities, in tune with their individual capabilities. As far as possible the group defines the way. Given tasks are solved by activities going beyond specific lessons, and into the ‘real world.’ Thus, teaching is not restricted to the classrooms, but also takes place in real everyday situations. The contents of the lessons are tailored to suit the real living conditions of the students. Students with and without handicaps are encouraged to do something together; this is another principle of the school.

Various professions collaborate at the school. In the past both the human and financial resources could not be used efficiently because the institution was scattered over five different places. The education of handicapped persons is a complex matter and requires the interdisciplinary collaboration of various professions. The common goal is to support the individual student in such a manner that s/he can successfully attend lessons and manage daily life. A maximum of independence is the other major objective of the work at our school.