Reim Elementary School

Narratives

Architect Narrative

The most important goal in planning a schoolhouse is the creation of a friendly and supporting enviroment. To achieve this goal schools are divided into separate, autonomous age groups clusters to create small “homes” for the children.

Every “home” should have its own entrance, its own courtyard etc. as private as possible. On the other hand it should be closely connected to the communal
center of the school — the entrance, the management, the library, laboratories etc.

In the chilly climate of the Galilee and on the steep slopes of the site, one cannot just spread pavilions in the park as could be done on a flat site with warmer climate.

The contradiction between privacy and compactness on a cold and steep site is the principal theme of this project. We found out that the stereometry of the spiral is ideal to solve this contradiction. The three age groups clusters climb the spiral, having the closest contact with the school’s communal core — the entrance,management,library,laboratories etc, while on the other side they enjoy the the privacy of an autonomous realm with its own multipurpose communal space opened to its private sheltered courtyard.

For the time being the school operates mostly in the traditional classroom system combining diverse groupings and personal training. For the latter they use the multipurpose hall. The plan provides the option of opening the study spaces to enable more open space learning, as shown in the entrance level cluster plan.

Educator Narrative

Our new school house was planned by a large crew including the pedagogical staff, the engineering department, the architects and we used the services of an institute specializing in the translation of pedagogical concepts to tangible building program.

From the beginning we knew that we want to create three autonomous age groups, each with its own courtyard, lavatories and a multipurpose large space .
In an early stage of the planning process we made it clear that though we cherish privacy and prefer small to large groups we do not want to wander in the rain among spread pavilions. We were ready to reduce the size of the multipurpose space in order to finance the sheltered connection between school wings.

We were more than pleased to find out that in the ingenious spiral structure suggested by the architects we won’t have to waste precious money on use less corridors and save it to enlarge the multipurpose communal halls of the clusters.

We decided to keep the traditional classrooms though we use them in a modern way. As we cannot foresee the future developments in education we instructed the architects to keep the option of other learning systems feasible.