PPAG Architects ZT GmbH

Secondary School Sauland

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

Secondary School Sauland 

PPAG architects + Helen & Hard

CLIENTS
Hjartdal Kommune

TEAM PPAG
Anna Popelka, Georg Poduschka, Paul Fürst, Florian Bartelsen, Leonie Maier

TEAM HELEN & HARD
Reinhard Kropf, Siv Helene Stangeland, Karen Jansen, Aylin Jørgensen-dahl, Fredrik Krogeide, Aina Sand Telhaug, Sofie Galåen Bentzen

AREA
2230 M²

YEAR
2019

LOCATION
Sauland, Norway

TYPE
High School

Text description provided by architect.

PPAG Architects has developed around 30 school projects, and have become experts in educational buildings.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The construction of a small secondary school in the southern Norwegian village of Sauland, which PPAG Architects designed together with the Norwegian Helen & Hard, brings cluster and village together.

Austrian-international school construction expertise and Scandinavian timber construction expertise were the subject of a successful fusion. Free learning and project-oriented teaching are in the foreground, frontal teaching is limited to a sensible level.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

It was the largest new construction project in the village for 20 years. The rural typology shapes the character and identity of the school. The size of the two-storey superimposed classrooms corresponds to the wooden houses in the area.

The terms front and back are becoming less important, and the building looks the same from every direction - friendly, accessible, open.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The unusual: The proven cluster model was applied here so that virtually the whole school is a single cluster, including all specialist rooms. A spatial symbol for a comprehensive education.

The space in front of the classes is not a break room, but is used through the whole day as a central pedagogical forum.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

Parts of the forum are designed as niches for small groups and can even be separated with glass doors.

Thanks to its rotational arrangement, the forum has windows to the outside.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The educational areas on both floors also have direct access to the outside.

The concept of visual connections continues from the outside in: visual connections between the areas of use create the basis for an open lesson.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

A large, wide staircase in the middle of the forum is also used for educational purposes.

The library on the ground floor serves on the one hand as an extension of the forum, on the other hand as a connecting element between secondary school and administration building.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The main entrance on the ground floor of the school is shared with the adjoining gym, which is also used for extracurricular activities of the community.

The majority of the school and the sports hall are executed in CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) - solid wood panel construction.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The atmospheric effect of the wooden surfaces encourages the children to touch the building, to sit on components or to work.

The house becomes a tool of education, a workshop of the senses.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

The sound-intensive rooms (workshop areas on the ground floor and music rehearsal rooms on the first floor) are accommodated in a concrete core.

The change of the pedagogues into the new rooms turned out to be unproblematic since the manageable, rural size of the school building was immediately familiar.

Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler

"The house radiates a potential of use that nobody can avoid," explain PPAG.


Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler


Secondary School Sauland
© Wolfgang Thaler
Secondary School Sauland
© Anne Bratveit


Secondary School Sauland
Section
Secondary School Sauland
Section


Secondary School Sauland
Diagram
Secondary School Sauland
Diagram
Secondary School Sauland
Diagram
Secondary School Sauland
Site plan


Secondary School Sauland
Plans
Secondary School Sauland
Plans

PPAG Architects ZT GmbH
T +43 1 5874471-0 F +43 1 5874471 -99
PPAG Architects ZT GmbH
Gumpendorfer Straße 65, 1060 Wien, Austria
Arkitektfirma Helen & Hard, AS
T +47 406 40672
Arkitektfirma Helen & Hard, AS
Erfjordgata 8, 4014 Stavanger, Norway