Schmuttertal Gymnasium in Diedorf near Augsburg - Four barns for progress

摘要

Courage to do something new Diedorf is an idyllic small town with just 10,000 inhabitants in the Swabian district of Augsburg. In 2010 the Schmuttertal Gymnasium was set up there with three fifth-year classes an empty Mittelschule. It grew and soon had to move into a container. The goal was more ambitious: a new timber building to plus energy standard with open learning landscapes and market places to facilitate progressive educational methods. In 2011 the district of Augsburg, as the funder of this secondary school, gave its approval: the new building was to be erected in the framework of a research project by the German Federal Environmental Foundation. Two experienced timber building experts were commissioned to design the building: Hermann Kaufmann and Florian Nagler. "The bar was set pretty high", says Nagler. "Carrying out a purely timber building of this size placed enormous demands on us. And then there was the educational concept. The requirements in terms of sound insulation were very high." Hermann Kaufmann: "The greatest challenge was to achieve a plus energy building without any loss of architectural quality and to integrate the sizable ventilation plant in a timber building in a way that meets the requirements of both fire safety and sound insulation." The amount of coordination required was simply enormous.