New building Udens College | Scherpenhoek

For decades, the 'Rooie School' in Uden was a household name. Yet the havo/vwo building of Udens College had to make way for new construction. In the new education building with the new sports hall it has found a worthy successor. After the May vacations, teachers and students will move in.

"The Rooie School was in need of replacement," says director of operations Marcel Spierings of Udens College. "Renovation was no longer an option. The municipality also saw this and agreed to replacement new construction. This consists of three parts: a school building in red stucco as a nod to the old Rooie School, a state-of-the-art sports hall and a transparent atrium that connects the new building parts to the existing Study House." 

Comfortable educational building
Bonnemayer Architects, in the person of Niels Peters, designed the building components. In line with the educational concept and based on the wishes of the students, parents and staff, he created a comfortable educational building with a fresh look. The building consists partly of three, partly of four layers and provides space for six domains. Each domain serves as a home base for about 150 students. These small-scale learning environments consist of four classrooms and an open learning space in the middle. Outside the domains, students have access to laboratories, music rooms and hands-on classrooms for creative subjects. 

Sports hall and atrium
The new sports hall is located between the new education building and the existing Study House. "A beautiful hall," Spierings said. "The hall is also suitable for clubs in the region. It has a wonderful public facility that was later modified at the request of the municipality of Uden." The connecting element between the various building parts is the atrium. In this transparent living space, whose north side is made of glass, the temperature is two degrees lower than in the classrooms. This, plus the furnishings bring the outdoor feeling inside. 

The sports hall at Udens College can be divided into three halls with partition walls.

Open, transparent and energy efficient
"The building components beautifully express our core values," said Udens College director-director Ad van Kemenade. "Our openness, transparency and trust in each other are reflected in the open structure and the various meeting places."
Another important requirement of Udens College is energy efficiency. The building must meet a maximum energy consumption of 60 kWh/m² per year. "This is very important," Van Kemenade emphasizes. "By keeping our energy costs low, more resources remain available for the  educational process."

Feasible design
The maximum energy consumption combined with the available budget proved a difficult task for the executing parties. "In the end, we found the right party in BINX Smartility," says Spierings. "With them, we entered into an open, transparent collaboration to arrive at a feasible design. Thanks to BINX's expertise in structural and installation engineering, we succeeded, also with regard to that 60 kWh/m². For example, the entire W-installation comes from BINX. They also advised us not to use a heat pump system. That would require deep drilling, which is quite expensive. Instead, we now have heat pumps and a small, gas-fired facility that allows for quick supplementary heating." 

Pleasant cooperation
Construction started in December 2017. Spierings was closely involved in the work and watched with rising amazement how the concrete shells of the school building and sports hall were constructed in record time: "The entire construction was completed in a good year. This is partly due to the pleasant cooperation with BINX. We encountered a number of stumbling blocks, but we always found a good solution together. I therefore look back on an intensive, but wonderful development and construction process."