Despite a difficult space situation, Doren Elementary School was erected in the centre the community and thus contributes greatly to the village centre. The entrance area is an integral component of the village square. With the kitchen unit in the entrance hall, and the multipurpose room on the ground floor, not only municipal meetings can be held, but annual-general meetings can be carried out as well as social meetings with the inclusion of the village square. The architects Andreas Cukrowicz and Anton Nachbaur-Sturm won the competition in the spring of 2001. Completion followed in September 2003. Only 500m² were built on of a site area of 1,300m², nevertheless a gross floor area of 2,000m² could be achieved. The building costs amounted to 2.5 million euro. Decorative concrete was chosen intentionally for the facade construction. The interior joinery, as well as the ceiling constructions, is exclusively made of the precious wood, silver fir.

The rough-sawn flooring has already shown its worth. Doren Elementary School is seen as a showpiece building for such use. The fitted furniture and dividing walls are also of silver fir, but sanded. Through the consequent construction and ventilation and de-aeration, not only the best possible relationship to air quality could be created, but construction heights could also be reduced. In place of the stipulated 3.2 metres, 2.9 metres could be realised here. With the building, contemporary architecture could be harmonically and functionally integrated as a whole in the centre of a traditional village structure.

Unique aspects of the building

Untreated timber surfaces of silver fir, and even rough-sawn fir for the flooring was permitted for the first time in Austria in a school; a new generation of naturalness goes hand in hand in the realisation in schools. Several communities have followed this example.

The municipality representatives and the school director, Mr Dragosits, accepted the suggestions put by the architects Cukrowicz and Nachbaur, who created a functional and homely building for the kindergarten and for the school. Accommodated in the building are rooms for public events and rehearsal rooms. The building is an enrichment for the social life of the community of 1,000 inhabitants.

The competition took place in 2001 and building began in July 2002. The building could be completed within 16 months, witness to highly qualified regional craftsmen.

Statement

The site of the new elementary school, kindergarten and gymnasium is on a steep slope in the vicinity of the church, parsonage and local authority office in the village centre. The five-floor massive structure concentrates the themes of the alternation and overlapping of vertical and horizontal planes. Spatial interplay is created through the change in orientation of individual planes on the ground floor and on the two upper floors. The exterior walls of the school are load-bearing. Room-high bearers span each part of the building’s interior. A large opening in each bearer serves to give horizontal access from plane to plane. The concrete support structure can be seen and felt as a spatial theme on the facades and in the building’s interior. Untreated local silver fir was used exclusively for the non-load-bearing parts.

Description

There is a new, striking building next to the church in the village centre. The Vienna Centre of Architecture describes it as follows in its report.

“The new elementary school, with a kindergarten and gymnasium, was erected in the centre of the village to harmonise with the church, parsonage and local authority office on a steeply falling site. With a compact, sharp-edged design, which triumphed in a competition in 2001, the architects made a theme of the precise contours of a five-floor, decorative concrete cube, as well as the overlapping and spatial alternation of planes and the concentrated atmospheric dualism of the two working materials, timber and concrete.”

Interior viewing only on advance notice, per e-mail to the head office.