Schools for the Future:
- Modular Schools Location: Gütersloh, Germany
- Project Name: Zukunfstfähige Schulen (Schools for the Future)
- Commissioned Architect: Kresings
- Commissioned Interior Architect: Sigurd Larsen
- Chief Interior Architect LP1-7: Tai Schomaker
- Scale: Approximately 18,000 m² across 12 modular units, ranging from 1 to 3 floors
Project Description:
This large-scale educational project aims to urgently upgrade 12 existing schools in Gütersloh. On each school site, a new modular extension is added to the existing buildings. The modular units have similar floor plans for classrooms and canteens, allowing each school to choose the number of modules required based on their needs – some chose 1 additional floor, others 3, and one school has 2 modules.
The interior design is colorful and child-scaled, with custom-designed wooden furniture. Each school can choose from 4 carefully composed color schemes, which have also been adopted by the building architects for the wooden facade design.
Despite the modular nature of the schools, almost no two configurations are identical, requiring careful and early coordination between all planners from the sketch phase. Additionally, the building documentation had to be described in a neutral manner, as the bidding procedure was open and EU-wide, adding extra complexity, especially for furniture equipment quantification.
The resulting “Schools for the Future” are flexible, sustainable, and user-friendly, adapting to the unique needs of each school site.
