New Building Secondary School, Gersthofen, Germany

In Gersthofen, Augsburg (Bavaria), a new construction of the middle school was planned, including a three-field gymnasium as a replacement for a school building from 1971. The gym was built first in 2014. After that, the new school building with 24 classrooms was built in October 2015. After moving from the old building to the new one during the winter break in 2017, the first day of school took place in the new building on January 8, 2018 in seamless transition. The schoolyard in the middle of the campus is shared with the neighboring high school.
The central auditorium, which connects the floors via staircases, forms the centerpiece of the new school building. During the design phase, special attention was paid to sustainability and resource-efficient construction. The holistic approach deliberately uses maximum daylight. The auditorium is naturally exposed via roof skylights. Partially glazed partitions of the classrooms ensure good lighting from the auditorium. Each area is bright and friendly, and in every part of the building one can experience a connection to the outdoors and the surrounding nature. In addition to daylight, optimal air quality in schools is important. A hybrid ventilation concept proven successful in schools is used for this purpose. It combines the basic mechanical air supply with additional bump ventilation through windows during breaks. Thus, the central ventilation system can be reduced in size by 40%, which also supplies the area of the all-day-school, the cafeteria and the auditorium on the ground floor. On the upper floors, decentralized ventilation units are integrated into the facades. This saves floor height, as there are no shafts and supply air ducts. High thermal comfort is achieved by the radiation systems used: the floor itself heats or cools in the summer, thanks to activated concrete ceilings. A heat pump supplies heat from the groundwater. For summer cooling of concrete floors, the system uses the groundwater directly. It is planned to integrate this system into a predominantly regenerative local heating supply for all surrounding school buildings. Special emphasis was placed on the use of natural materials, such as wood in the roof construction of the gym. Here also skylights supply with natural daylight. However, immediately after completion it became clear that the new middle school is too small; an extension of six classrooms is currently being planned.