Reconstruction of the school campus Bockmühle

The reconstruction of the Bockmühle campus in the Altendorf district is an opportunity for the City of Essen to acquire a new multi-purpose school facility combining teaching spaces with sports and cultural facilities open to the community. It is also a way of restructuring the whole of this part of the city around a unifying facility. We imagined three buildings that structure the site by delimiting two large green spaces: a new park open to the city to the east and a generous schoolyard planted in the heart of the newly created block. Gaps between the buildings ensure the complete porosity of the site, as the schoolyard is not enclosed. While the ground floor houses programmes intended for all inhabitants (libraries, community spaces, multi-purpose rooms), the upper floors are dedicated to teaching spaces, designed as large flexible floors surrounded by balconies and planted terraces. Each class thus has numerous spaces conducive to cross-curricular and decompartmentalised teaching (outdoor activities, inter-grade exchanges, etc.). The evacuation staircases are externalized and make it possible to multiply the possible circulation routes. The project thus becomes a real pedagogical tool for rich and stimulating teaching.