Technical College Memmingen
- locationMemmingen
- year2005
- clientStadt Memmingen HBA Memmingen
- BGF6.500 m2
- BRI27.000 m3
- PartnerArchitekt Erwin Klose
School building
This two-storey educational building stands like an outsize piece of furniture in a green field. One approaches the flat, low-rise structure with a sense of curiosity. The deep recess of the broad hall opening with its full-height glazing is the dominant element of the front facade. . Above the hall is a further striking feature: a 1.20-metre-high glazed strip that affords a view of the slenderly dimensioned timber roof structure within
The visual links from the forecourt through the hall to the internal courtyard soon reveal that this is not a compact building, as one might at first have thought, but a development based on a U-shaped plan that is formally closed by the glazed assembly hall. This simple layout allows a clear organization of 20 classrooms, 10 special classrooms and the administration.
The spaces in which students and teachers spend the greatest amount of time are oriented to the south-east and south-west and command a view of the landscape. Workshops, special classrooms, ancillary spaces and the staircase are located along the base tract that links the two legs of the U-shaped layout. The furniture image acquires an added significance from the storey-height pivoting shutters in high-quality Douglas fir which run round three sides of the building.
These two-leaf elements open and close like doors to secret compartments. The shutters are manually operated as required and are held in position by strong stays.
The interplay of open and closed shutters and the linear repetition of the same dimensional forms lend the building a surprising depth.
