On behalf of the Opfikon school authorities, students of interior design and scenography at the HGK Basel, under the direction of Prof Andreas Wenger, designed the interior concept for the new ‘Bubenholz Cluster School’ building. The aim was to find answers to the central question: What will the school of tomorrow look like? wd3 supported the project with several test samples of our flexible, multifunctional Xbrick®.
At the end of 2023, students Meta Rüegg, Silvan Seifert and Niklaus Oppliger were given the task of ‘combining the knowledge from our interior design and scenography studies with practice’ and translating the pedagogical guiding principles of the city of Opfikon into spatial terms. Under the title ‘Vision Schule Bubenholz 2029’, the teaching staff formulated a guideline that moves away from a rigid, teacher-centred timetable towards project-oriented, student-centred learning – mixed-age, interdisciplinary and in changing group constellations.
“The change from teacher-centred teaching to student-centred learning is taken into account. Interdisciplinary, project-orientated teaching replaces the traditional timetable.”
Four learning groups of twelve to fourteen children each share a cluster of around 345 m². The task: to create spaces that promote cooperative work as well as individual islands of retreat.
In an interdisciplinary dialogue with teachers, school management and other experts, the students developed concepts for the various usage requirements. Ideas were compared directly with practice in workshop formats and prototypes were tested individually with school classes. This resulted in a common language for spatial qualities such as group work, places of retreat and project-based learning – always in dialogue with those who will later use the space on a daily basis.
‘Together with the future users, the Opfikon school management and other everyday experts, we channelled our energy into researching future learning landscapes.’ It was and is immensely important to the students to ‘put people at the centre’ and thus ‘enable enjoyable learning’.
At the centre of each cluster is the central zone (marketplace) as a lively heart, where the cloakroom is also located. Class activities, free play and informal meetings all take place here. Four separable group rooms, each with an area of 17.5 m2, are arranged around the marketplace.
Acoustic curtains, lightweight partition walls and the lightweight Xbrick make it possible to quickly reconfigure the areas as required.
Flexible, lightweight and intuitively operable furniture such as Xbrick can be used in a variety of ways by the children themselves, making a significant contribution to multifunctional design.
The Bubenholz cluster school project impressively demonstrates how spatial concepts and pedagogical requirements can intertwine. Under the expert guidance of Prof. Andreas Wenger, the students have designed a successful, pupil-centred learning landscape in which flexibility and stability are in balance.
We are delighted that Xbrick, as a multifunctional spatial tool, can make a contribution here – and proves that modular architecture not only shapes spaces, but also brings learning processes to life.
Many thanks to Meta Rüegg, Silvan Seifert and Niklaus Oppliger for these well thought-out and forward-looking plans! We look forward to the further realisation.
More information on the project can be found at raumundbildung.ch and in the article at hochparterre.ch
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