Rethinking Schools

Rethinking Schools

Qualification and participation process for the expansion of the Freie Waldorfschule Hof

From October 2018 to March 2019, the Institute for Process Architecture, in cooperation with team 51.5° architekten, was commissioned to support the Freie Waldorfschule Hof in the conceptual and formal preparation of its upcoming school expansion through a workshop process, enabling the school to successfully fulfill its responsibilities as a non-profit and multi-stakeholder client in the forthcoming planning and construction process.
The aim of the workshop process was to further develop the school’s planned expansion project together with representatives from all areas of the school community. At the same time, the expansion project was intended to serve as an opportunity for a holistic review of the existing building stock, the current zoning of uses within the existing buildings, and the identified spatial requirements, in order to derive the profile of the new building from this analysis.
The workshop process was conceived as a multi-part series of workshops with preparatory meetings, four workshops, and a final public presentation of the results to the school community. The central outcomes of the four-part workshop process were, on the one hand, the qualitative profiling of the new building project and, on the other, the quantitative definition of the construction measure.
At the qualitative level, the profile of the new building could be derived from a holistic review of the existing building stock, the zoning of uses across the entire site, and the identified spatial requirements. The profile of the two-part new building project was developed in its basic features with regard to size, positioning, number of storeys, distribution of uses, building profile, character, materiality, color scheme and atmosphere, as well as technology and energy.
In addition to the conceptual orientation of the extension building, structural-level topics of project development were also addressed, such as planning and building law, organization of client representation, procedures for selecting planners, budget framework, financing model, and timeline.
Based on the results of the workshop process, the decision in favor of the FWS expansion project was made unanimously. The outcome thus served, on the one hand, as a basis for decision-making for the project development of the extension building and, on the other, as a clearly defined brief for the resulting planning and construction project.
Project team
Prof. Swen Geiss (lead), Dipl.-Ing. Miriam Hamel, Frederic Hormesch

Client
Freie Waldorfschule Hof

Project duration
10/2018 to 03/2019