Educational Center, Holzgau

The new multifunctional educational center in Holzgau in Tyrol reimagines the idea of the school. The pedagogic architectural concept pays particular attention to the scale of the child and creates a warm and inviting interior by using natural materials. The “barn for learning” provides the nursery, kindergarten, and school children lots of space for moving around as well as sensory and visual experiences and interactions.

A building for children
The design of the child-friendly structure belongs to a long tradition of Alpine architecture: The placing of a calm timber structure on a stone base is a common building method, particularly in Lechtal. The educational center houses a kindergarten and a primary school as well as a nursery and the afternoon childcare facility for children of all ages between two and ten. The smallest children occupy the spaces nearest to the ground that have a direct relationship with the outside. This also reflects the needs of this age group for generally smaller spaces. At the same time, all spaces are closely related and countless visual connections provide a permeable spatial sequence. The school is located in the timber volume of the “barn for learning,” a broad and open space that sits on this base.

Sheep’s wool and softwood
Each space was designed as an interaction between materiality, color, and acoustics. The woven sheep’s wool carpets typical to Lechtal, with their high-quality ecological and microbiological characteristics, are also incorporated into the specially configured seating landscapes and sound insulation elements. The numerous platforms and play areas are also covered with Lechtal carpets and wool is also the main material in the curtains and wall coverings.
The color scheme is generated by the natural materials used in the building: wood, wool, and stone. Wood plays a central role: from the exposed solid timber walls and the roof structure that hovers over the entire space, via the acoustic cladding with its slats of silver fir, to the floorboards made of local larch. The carvings integrated into sections of the wall cladding are produced in the well-known neighboring carving school.

In harmony with nature
Ecological and economic building services were a concrete design objective from day one. The building should be autarchic in terms of heating and the overall energy budget balanced. This was achieved thanks to a number of measures: Heating demand is met by a geothermal plant and the exclusive use of LED throughout the building strongly reduces electricity consumption. At the same time, a solar plant is positioned on the south-facing low-pitched roof. The heat exchangers that support the ventilation system are independent from the spatial air conditioning. This means that it is possible to ventilate just those spaces where this makes sense, such as the classrooms and the group rooms.