The Spaaihoeve | A school without classrooms

A school for and by children. A beach with the possibility of swimming did not come, but a relaxation corner, a lounge area and a place to read are certainly integrated into the new school. A school without classrooms.

Architect Simon Hanemaaijer: "The Jenaplan educational vision of De Spaaihoeve in Eindhoven does not benefit from a traditional building with classrooms, but from a school like a loft. A smart roof on legs with freely divisible spaces, in which education is given a dynamic interpretation in clusters." The result is, on the one hand, a building as a nod to the historic farmstead that once stood on the site and, on the other hand, above all, the pleasant atmosphere and sense of home that the farmstead characteristics provide. The design for the Spaaihoeve is unconventional on several levels. It starts with the idea of a school as a loft. A school building to provide future-oriented education, without corridors and traditional classrooms. The main construction of wood is also not obvious.

Off the beaten path
Whereas wood was the preferred building material 100 years ago, nowadays the fossil materials steel and concrete are chosen as standard. The desired spans in the design of the Spaaihoeve could also be a reason for this. Although wood is an ancient building material, we encountered resistance. Regarding calculation methods and budgets, resistance in relation to common processes and in other seemingly self-evident matters. So why are we stepping off the beaten track, questioning these self-evident truths?

Well-being
The answer to those questions? We, school and architect, believe in the positive impact of a natural educational environment, built with healthy biobased building materials. Designing from the perspective of 'Total Cost of Ownership' results in design choices that look much further than just the primary investment and also the operating costs. Precisely in this design, the effect on the organizational costs, the well-being and positive effect on the learning performance of the students was focused on. The material wood integrally makes a very good contribution to this. On the one hand because of the low environmental burden and shadow costs, the CO2 positive effect. On the other hand, the natural effect on the indoor climate and lack of toxic emissions. Look at it from this simple comparison; what is the difference between a walk through concrete village or a walk in the forest? Translate that to the educational building. So where does your preference lie? An old Chinese proverb goes, "When the doctor can no longer cure you, go live in a wooden house."

Stack it up
The school building was designed as a single-story building, partly on the basis of an explicit educational vision. A single-story building has a relatively large amount of facade and roof area and therefore more transmission loss. On the other hand, there is also more roof area for sustainable energy generation and, above all, more direct interface between interior and exterior space, which is very positive for the spatial experience and daylight penetration. The savings on stairs, elevator, fire separations and construction time, among other things, plus the substantial cost savings on the single-story construction - versus a multi-story building - is integrally used to increase the quality of the healthy and future-oriented educational building. By unconventional route, a timber builder was involved in the project at an early stage who, from his expertise, is accustomed to constructing with peasant sense. In collaboration, the timber construction was engineered, completely worked out in BIM and delivered ready-to-go on site. The shell was assembled within four weeks. A textbook example of dry construction. Simply put, it was a matter of stacking; columns on a smart grid with an underlay beam on top and on top of that the roof beams with floor boards.