The new center

Can you remember what the school where you spent your youth looked like? Perhaps it was one of those outdated buildings with a heavy entrance door and gloomy corridors in which every step reverberates on the stone floor, filled with a chilly and awe-inspiring aura. The Konrad-Lorenz-Gymnasium in Gänserndorf (Lower Austria) was another such uninviting place of learning - until the renowned Viennese architecture firm Franz&Sue transformed it into a modern, friendly, feel-good school.

Come together

In the villas of antiquity, the assembly hall was the center of social life: a spacious reception room or courtyard where people met with friends and family, welcomed guests and held parties. The architects placed such a place at the center of their plans for the redesign of the grammar school. They replaced the old building with three long, single-storey wings with a bright, three-storey new building, whose 40 classrooms are arranged around the bright, airy assembly hall. It not only serves as a "traffic junction" on the way from one room to another, but also as a recreation and break area for the 1,000 pupils with seating cushions, gym mats and table tennis tables. To the west, shielded from the street and parking lot by the main building, is the spacious school garden: with green areas, play equipment and plenty of seating that invites you to chat, chill out and dream - or to admire the extraordinary façade of the new building in peace and quiet, which is worth more than just a glance. Narrow larch wood slats were arranged offset to each other on two levels: A second level, rotated by 30°, was placed on top of the inner, vertical battens. The filigree design ensures lightness and an iridescent, dynamic look - the façade appears to be in constant motion. This impression is further enhanced by the coating with ADLER's Lignovit Platin effect glaze in light salar gray. The water-based glaze finish is equipped with special pigments that shimmer metallically in the sunlight; at the same time, the coating anticipates the natural graying of the wood and ensures a permanently beautiful appearance.

Into the future!

The façade made of local larch wood is also a statement of the high standards of ecology and sustainability that the team at Franz&Sue consistently implemented. The project was awarded a klimaaktiv silver award and a prize for exemplary construction in Lower Austria for its resource-conserving realization and sophisticated energy concept. So if you are looking for a counter-model to the undercooled and gloomy school of the past: Here you will find a prime example of a friendly and contemporary educational building.