Engelberg

New primary school Mühlematt

Construction 2014 - Completion 2015

Project: new primary school, competition 2012: 1. Prize
Location: Engelberg, Switzerland
Team: Shadi Rahbaran, Ursula Hürzeler, Albert Perez, Silvio Koch, Anne Keser
in collaboration with BGM Architekten
Structural consultant competition: zpf.Ingenieure - Nico Ros
Photos: Julian Lanoo (excl. 14-15)

Situated in the Alpine region of central Switzerland, the new school of Engelberg overlooks a dramatic mountain range, an austere baroque monastery, groomed grazing meadows and the small village of Engelberg. The school establishes a dual dialogue: with its existing idyllic context on one hand, and with an adjacent Brutalist school building (completed in 1967 by architect Ernst Gisel) on the other. This exchange between the existing and the new is carried out through the building’s physical volume, material use, and the specific intervention in its mountainous site. By extending the ascending ‘rue intérieure’ and the sequence of terraced playgrounds, a coherent relationship to the existing school campus is strengthened. 
The school is defined by a lucid and consistent spatial organization: four equally sized classrooms are organized around a flexible common room in a pin-wheel manner, resulting in a square footprint on each level. Two light-wells bring daylight into the center of the building while also connecting the levels vertically and allowing for cross-views throughout the entire building. These visual connections encourage social camaraderie and communicative exchange between teachers and students. In addition, small flexible group-rooms connecting the classrooms enable different learning configurations, from individual tutoring to collective cross-class teaching. This innovative floor plan typology is a response to the latest pedagogical demands for versatile teaching spaces. This project addresses the current discourse of architecture of schools and visions of education changing over the course of time.


NZZ Feuilleton