Lorentzschool, Leiden, 2008

Primary school for 900 pupils, a playroom with after-school group, a gymnasium, 39
housing units.

Project Facts
• Location: Leiden
• Country: The Netherlands
• Year of Completion: 2008
• Client: Gemeente Leiden Dienst Bouw & Wonen en Bureau Openbaar Onderwijs.
• Architect: Atelier PRO Website
• Size: 4,700m2
• Pupils: 900 [mixed]
• Construction Sum:€5,187,000 [2008]
• School building Programme/ Initiative: N/A

Design duo: Leon Thier, Sechmet Bötger and Constanze Knüpling / Mart Buter

Project engineer: Eelko Bemener

Project co-operators: Susan Jansen, Marjon Main, Tim Kapfer, Miriam Castello,
David van Erk, David Schilleman, Jorge del Castillo de Stefani

Nomination BNA Building of the year 2009

Overview
Creating a primary school for 900 pupils aged 3-11 without making it feel daunting is
a difficult design challenge. An added complication in this instance was the need to
design a school that also has an appropriate massing for the urban area in which the
school is located. Lorentzschool overcomes these problems with a solid but
approachable building. The external brick walls of the building are broken down to a
more child-like scale through the careful manipulation of window openings, offering a
visual connection between inside and out. Inside the building, classrooms are
grouped in houses and pupils move up through the school as they grow older.
Circulation spaces are cleverly articulated to include meeting spaces, an ICT suite
and informal music areas. The aim is to have a legible plan for children to navigate
through, but at the same time provide events round every corner so that children are
also encouraged to explore.

Themes
Integrated flexibility for space and learning
Each year group of the school have their own floor, within which a series of houses
have been organised, each with its own identity. Children are encouraged to explore
the school building in the knowledge that they have the security of their own base to
return to.

A series of event spaces have been created along the main circulation routes around
the school, transforming corridors into more useable and enjoyable spaces. The
ground to first floor stairs are used to as a meeting and congregation area, which
then leads up to a flexible ICT space and several group meeting spaces along its
length. Each space forms part of a route up through the building, augmented by
windows looking on to the internal courtyard and roof lights flooding the space with
natural light.

Integrated social and physical context

Lorentz School was designed as part of a wider urban regeneration project which
included the creation of an apartment block by the same architects. Both projects
look onto a new piazza which forms the focal point for the neighbourhood. This wider
architectural remit helps to maintain a continuity of vision and the neighbourhood as
a whole benefits from an architecturally coherent strategic design.

Innovative solutions to specific areas or smaller spaces

The organisation of toilets is quite unique in that two cubicles are paired-up with hand
basin in between. These units then line one side of the corridor and are associated
with a particular classroom. This approach helps to reduce journeys by children to
and from the classroom, and reduces the anxiety of using larger centralised toilet
facilities.

Responses to developing integrated ICT

An ICT suite is cleverly integrated with an open access library and staircase. The
inherent versatility accommodates group teaching and individual work for formal
lessons and at break times. The book shelf units help to soak up the changes of level
and turn into workstations for the tier above. Using steps to make the tiered space
enables easy supervision, particularly from the top of the stairs, where a teacher
could see all computer screens. Conversely, a teacher standing at the front may not
be able to see all pupils as faces may be hidden behind the computer monitors.

::

Design
To approach this primary school, centrally positioned in the block and oriented to all
sides, is a finely-scaled, vibrant experience. The youngest children, the juniors, have
three scattered points of entry to their domain of four classrooms, from where they
can explore the rest of the school. The middle and senior schoolchildren each have
their own yard which leads them through the heart of the school to their separate
floors.
Each age group has its own story where it can develop its talents. 'Houses' divide the
stories into spaces that are finely scaled and easy to read. Vertical connections via
stairs and wells encourage interaction between all age groups.
At the heart of the
school, accessible to all the groups, are the main hall and documentation centre
draped with terraces, with stairs and landings enfolding the gym hall and stitching all
floors together. For the monthly stage performances this multi-purpose space can be
transformed into a festive hall with a foyer, seating and stage.

Lorentz School and Housing

This new school for 900 pupils and two residential buildings together containing 39
apartments stand on the site of the former Lorentz School. Together they assemble
around existing high-grade green space, which informs the character of the new
public plaza between school and housing. This green space closes ranks with that on
Van Vollenhovenkade. Taking 'an all-round feeling' as its principal theme, the design
secures orientation, recognition and a subtleness of scale for pupils and residents
alike.

Housing
The corners of the block are taken up by two apartment buildings of three stories,
with a fourth story accentuating the public plaza. Surrounded by high-profile
sculptural facades with accents at the corners, the two buildings make approaching
the school yard a spirited affair. Each resident reaches their home across their own
finely-scaled patio. Living rooms span the corner so that every dwelling has a view of
the green squares and streets.
 Nicholas Socrates 4123875

European Design and Building Cultures - SPRING 2011

THE ARCHITECTURAL BIOGRAPHY

Name: Anne Frank Primary School

Site: Papendrecht, The Netherlands
Architect: Herman Herzburger
Date: 1993-1996
Client: Papendrecht City Council
Costs: Unkonwn
Size: Total: 2700 m2;
Teaching Areas: 480m2 (including lavatory and store and quiet room)
Hall: 96m2
Typical Classroom: 50m2 (x8)
Nursery Play space: 70m2
Central Hall: 88m2 (triple height volume, which includes vertical circulation)
Teaching Areas: 480m2 (including lavatory and store and quiet room)

Materials
A steel frame with rendered concrete walls and a combination of flat asphalt and pitched-curved zinc-
clad roofs

Situation
The site occupies a flat corner on the edge of a modernist housing development in a largely residential
neighborhood.

Background
The school was built alongside the development of various housing projects, situated in a largely
residential neighbourhood. The school was built to meet the demands and wishes of proximately for a
local school.

Program
A local authority primary school
Designed as a part of a larger housing scheme
For children aged 4 - 12 (8 years)
8 teaching spaces: 28 children in each (= 224 children)

Architectural Solutions
A typical Herman Herzburger form

Hertzberger's primary structure for learning environments was to create a school that represented the
community at large to enhance socialization.

Hertzberger was also influenced by the ideas of Willem Dudok, who believed that school design should
reflect schools as "a place of joy".

Organised vertically (as apposed to normal school configurations)

Therefore it is economical and spatially it adopts a clustered house toe configuration.
It has a central hall space, which has become the focus of the community with an auditorium
arrangement of steps - which encourages the pupils to linger and socialise and mix across the age
ranges.

As well as this - the circulation stairs and galleries criss-cross the large volume enabling a relationship to
the whole school (not just in the class bases) even for the younger children.

What makes the schools configuration particularly effective is its flexibility - enabled by openable screen
walls - linking the classroom spaces at eh ground floor to the hall.
The ground floor opens up to be a transparent, open volume - merging with the outdoor environment -
the surrounding gardens.
Flexibility related to future change is a key component in Hertzberger's design,

This is a surprising transformation from the cellular nature of the normal closed school arrangement.

The orientation of each classroom is carefully choreographed to optimize the sun exposure with largely
glazed walls on the north facing side facing the playroom
+ with shaded corner windows openings to the south and west.

Structure
A steel frame with rendered concrete walls and a combination of flat asphalt and pitched-curved zinc-
clad roofs

Façade
The architecture evokes the language of its surrounding housing blocks, which are of Corbusian
aesthetics - of white rendered walls with horizontal 'ribbon' windows.
Yet here the form is different enough both in terms of scale and shape - therefore announcing its status
as a public building.

Specific Information
There is a surprising lack of security - with access provided from 3 directions
This factor is not overcome because of its naturally existing open, contained internal volume, therefore
there are many eyes watching, controlling the space against the possibility of intruders.

Views from the playground show the marriage between the form and its use.
The staircase and balconies beneath the great industrial roof form a safe enclosed public space.
It can be interpreted in 2 ways;
1. of clear uncompromising technology - space ship like.
2. On the other hand it is a home away from home - an intimate friendly place.

Each element of the program is expressed, with the great curved roofs - looping over the top of the
internal hall.

Herman Herzburger’s Anne Frank school is a beautifully clear, open and rational building

It synthesizes small-scale domestic forms with larger scale institutional volumes to create s hybrid
school of great sophistication.
Herman Herzburgers Architectural Philosophy
“The opportunity to see and be seen”.
It is about ʻlookingʼ and ʻbeing looked atʼ.
The building should become a sort of theatre.
And a feeling of being inspired by others, who are working their.

For Herman’s design of the NHL University he described the spaces he was creating as; “Office
landscapes” with articulated parts and areas where people can work freely.

“We should make conditions more than solutions.”

The role of the architect is to create the conditions for people to be aware of each other, and to get
in contact with one another.
This is not necessarily for “meeting” (meeting people) – “that is sentimental”
It is about seeing people. When you see someone – it is not yet a meeting – it could become a
meeting, but it is just that you are aware of each other, and that you are not completely distant.

Bibliography

DUDEK, M. Architecture of Schools: the new learning environments. Architectural Press. 2000.

Indesem 2011. BK City, TU Delft. Herman Herzburger Lecture. Collegerama. Recorded Lectures.

Photographs

DUDEK, M. Architecture of Schools: the new learning environments. Architectural Press. 2000.
Wouterje Pieterse Primary School, Leiden, 1990

In the design for the Wouterje Perterse primary school, two strips of four classrooms
each are stacked and set at a slight angle to one another like a folding ruler.

This results in all kinds of particular spaces in the area in between, suck as a play
corner next to a preschool classroom on the ground floor, or a free, open area for
handicrafts and documentation on the first floor. The intermit area functions as a
corridor and at the same time accommodates activities outside the classrooms.

The relation between group areas and communal ones is inverted from one floor to
another. Therefore while the group areas on the ground floor are on the side facing
the street, those on the first floor look out onto a green playing field that the school is
allowed to use.

The Leiden Local Authority asked architect Sabien de Kleijn to design this school
precisely because she had never designed a school before.

The principal received an honourable mention in the School Architecture Prize for
1994. The jury praised the attractive spaces and the poetic design, as evidence, for
instance, in the reticent use of colour in the interior, which was mainly done in grey
and white.

At the same time the jury noted that there was an apparently dominant concept which
prevented full justice being done to the integration of the architecture and the
educational vision.

The further fate of the school was mainly determined by shortage of space as a result
of the fact that the neighbourhood is a green spur of the Leidse Hout has a growing
number of children. This was one of the reasons to close off the open documentation
area with a wall to avoid disturbance. In spite of the bright colours of the toys and
bags of the children, extra colour has been applied to some of the walls.

By now a plan for an extension of this location has been approved, based on a
design by the Barth firm of architects from Rotterdam.

This extension on the playing field at the rear is connected with the present school by
a glass corridor.
The ground plan in the form of a diamond enables another of the schools demands to
be met: classrooms which differ in size.

In the future the existing school will be devoted to preschool education, while the new
building will be used for the higher classes.

So in the end the architectural concept and the educational vision do meet.!
 Nicholas Socrates 2011 – 4123875

TU DELLFT – Making Architecture – AR1MA050

School Education in The Netherlands

Laws providing for universal compulsory education were adopted in the late 19th
century. In 1900 six-year compulsory primary education was established for children
between the ages of six and 12. Seven years of schooling became mandatory in 1933,
and eight years of compulsory free education (from the ages of seven to 15) was
instituted in 1950. The first stage of the educational system is the kindergarten. In 1971
kindergartens, most of them private, had an enrollment of about 492,000 children
between three and six years of age.

Primary education lasts for six years. Secondary instruction is given in six-year
Gymnasiums and atheneums.

In order to be admitted to a secondary general school, a pupil must have studied a

foreign language as an elective for two years at a primary school and must have passed
competitive entrance examinations.

Vocational training is provided by lower and intermediate secondary specialized schools

with courses of study ranging from a few months to five years.

In 1970–71 primary schools had an enrollment of about 1.5 million pupils, and secondary
schools enrolled more than 1.2 million, of whom some 604,000 were in general schools
and more than 500,000 attended specialized schools.

::

Dutch children are legally bound to spend 15% of their time in a school setting. The
indoor environment in Dutch primary schools is known to be substandard. However, it is
unclear to what extent the health of pupils is affected by the indoor school environment.

::

It was customary to cluster schools in green zones in post war urban development.

The restored classrooms and the new schools were initially a symbol of the proud
national reconstruction, the building activities soon became a response to the population
growth and increase of scale.

The number of school pupils dramatically increased in this period.

The expansion of education was connected with the democratization of education - the
growing participation of children from working-class backgrounds in secondary and
higher education.

Starting in the 1960's, when the worst classroom crisis was over, changes in the
educational system and new social ideas led to new buildings.

The introduction of the Secondary Education Act known as the Mammoth Act in 1968
was followed by the combination of secondary education facilities and their
accommodation in the new larger school clusters.

Today's primary schools, which emerged after the introduction of the Primary Education
Act in 1990, are the result of the merger of kindergartens and primary schools.

Teaching also changed between 1950 and 1990. Almost the entire educational field was
characterised by a shift from the transfer of information to 'broad education', 'general
development', 'self-reliance', and 'learning how to learn'.

School came to teach skills, norms and values as well as knowledge and teachers
introduced different teaching methods besides classroom lessons, such as working on
tasks in small groups or individual study and project education.

Teaching that went beyond the division into classes meant more mixing of different age
groups.

Architects designed schools with new ground plans to cater for these new trends. They
responded to the spatial consequences of a shift in education from which placed the
emphasis on the teacher or the study material, to an emphasis on the pupils themselves.

Primary education puts great emphasis on experience orientated learning, preparatory

vocational secondary schools puts emphasis on teaching in a learning environment what
is rich in context, while secondary vocational education emphasises the development of
the pupil's competences.

The New School for Primary Education; a study written in 1953 for innovative primary
education states; "The application of all kinds of forms of working on one's own is
intended to teach children to learn to work autonomously and on their own responsibility.
This desire for more autonomy and responsibility presupposes a greater measure of
freedom for the pupils than was allowed in the past, both physically and mentally. There
is no need to point out that children must know that this freedom is tied to the demands
and norms laid down by the classroom and school community. The absence of this order
and internalised discipline would lead to disorderly behaviour."

This shows that the new educational objective is not supposed to end in lawlessness
and asocial behaviour.

::

When it came to the building of new primary schools, architects responded to the new
teaching methods and educational objectives.

Essential conditions for a freer use of the space and the presence of ventilation from
more than one side and the admittance of daylight, which were applied on an enormous
scale after the 2nd World War.

The building Decree of 1924 stated that light must enter the classroom from the left in
primary schools so that compulsory right hand writing would not be hindered by
shadows.

In classroom teaching, the wall with the blackboard and the position of the teacher had a
decisive effect on how the benches were arranged. Departures from the arrangement by
which pupils sit in straight rows behind one another and look in the same direction soon
created problems.
All kinds of variants of primary schools were built all over the Netherlands in the postwar
period, which had more than one wall with a window and enabled different ways of
working.

Fixed school benches were replaced by loose table and chairs.

The application of the new teaching methods in these classrooms coincided with
changing views about school hygiene. The choice of windows in two or more sides of the
classroom was also intended to improve the indoor climate by making use of cross
ventilation, UV rays and skin effects. This information came from the building of open air
schools.

After the Second World War spatial elements derived from open air schools became
common place, such as low windows, schools without corridors, outdoor teaching areas,
spacious locations, and daylight from more than one side.

Research on the effects of open air schools education indicated that the increased light
and ventilation not only improved the health of the pupils but also raised their learning
performance.

Spatial interventions created an entirely different atmosphere in which the spatial

characteristics that had an influence on teaching underwent more than a functional
separation.

An environment which can promote learning, stimulate pupils to work by themselves, or

offer them opportunities for concentration. It could also promote differentiated forms of
social behaviour, such as working together or working on one's own.

::

In secondary education, technical schools adopted teaching methods with working on

one's own. Many schools were built because trained workers were needed for the
accelerated postwar industrialisation. In postwar period the building for technical
education were often divided up into blocks, wings or pavilions with separate areas for
theory, workshops and a gym. These components of a school require specific rooms that
are difficult to combine with one another.

Pupils learnt metal work or woodwork in the practical buildings with work benches,
usually long halls containing long rows of lathes, or desks where they carried out
exercises. In earlier post war periods these were all identical, precisely prescribed tasks.

In the course of time 'the endless filing exercises' came to be replaced by more 'free
exercises'. Working in groups 'in which the planning and division of labour stimulate the
initiative of the pupils' was introduced.

::

While the individual group work places were still fairly separated from one another in the
1950's, by the 1980's it had become common for pupils to use a work corner, corridor or
hall for educational purposes - which led to the spatial design and configuration of
different kinds of work places with flexible use of rooms in school clusters

::

At the end of the 1990's the so-called Study House was created for secondary
theoretical education, with the more or less complete integration of classrooms, general
areas and a library. This new educational form often had to be fitted in somehow into
existing buildings.

Although, now these 'vocational' - Study House schools are on their way out, it has
changed learning environments for the better. It has proved to be a positive step
forwards towards a new type of pre-university school with learning domains defined both
in organisational terms and in terms of type of classroom.

The modernisation of teaching methods may still be seen as controversial today. For
example in the mid 2005 'the new learning was given very negative coverage in the
news as a type of education in which 'anything goes'.

The picture became clear as it emerged from the primary schools, based on the principle
that every child is already wise, in which pupils are apparently allowed to run wild and
act around as long as they like.

It has now become clear that increased autonomy is not suitable for every pupil and that
above all those pupils who lag behind are in danger of not receiving adequate support.

::

Besides the system built schools, which continued to be constructed in large numbers
down to he late 1960's; Architects also developed buildings that were more suited to the
urban context; Pavilion schools and patio schools on one level were highly appropriate in
that respect because orientation, access and entrance were not determined beforehand.
With outdoor spaces which can be used separately by different age categories.

Primary schools and housing developments emerged together in the 1980's closely
connected to the process of urban renewal. In older neighbourhoods it was much more
challenging to integrate schools into the existing urban fabric, therefore, where land was
more scarce the architects of schools stacked their functions vertically.

::

In special needs schools a tendency can be detected for the replacement of the growing
specialisation and differentiation by combination and integration in the 1990's. The
preference for the distribution of pupils with special needs among several types of
schools was replaced by the 'Back to School Together Again' policy. A sort of rucksack
is made available to the children with which they can buy care, so that these special
needs children can prepare themselves for independent life in schools for regular
education.

The building of special needs schools in remote isolated locations is being abandoned
as he schools return to the city. With joint premises and school yards offer opportunities
for children with special needs, to therefore build up friendships with their peers in
regular education. The playground open to the public or not is justly enjoying a revival as
a social catalyst.
Herman Herzburger Lecture Notes 2011

Structuralism.

What sort of profession is architecture?

There are many architects trying to be clever, ʻdifferentʼ, famous, rich etc.
This is the wrong way. Only busy with themselves and their own identity.
What we are doing now is too much nonsense.

Let us rethink what architecture could be.

What is architecture as a profession for?
What are we doing?

::

Use our materials and talent in a more economic way.

Be careful of waste and be careful of indulgence.
Reference: BIG Mountain Dwellings – it is a fantastic design – but “half the world is
starving!”
Stepped housing in New Mexico is a contribution to the communal life of the people.
The “Mountain Dwellings” offer no contribution at all, apart from to the spoilt rich
people who can afford to live there. It is “an absolutely unimportant house”.

::

Norman Fosterʼs Hong Kong Shanghaii Bank.

It was the most expensive building – it still may be. Lots of Aluminum.
But at least it has a public street / a walkway underneath it – it gives something back
to the people.
It is an exaggerated building, but ʻI like itʼ. You can walk in it and look up and see,
though the glass screen above, all the rich people who work there.
Many people use this public ground floor space as shelter and for large gathering
also.
The ground level consists solely of 2 large industrial escalators – not a grant
staircase.
Foster is an architect for the rich, but at least he has some idea about what should be
done. An idea about public space.

::

Against social media, but Herman is very interested in the reality of the street and
people.
It is always about people (“and not about ants”) – not about looking as an architect
from a great distance.

::

Buildings next to streets is the wrong juxtaposition.

Actually, the insides of a building can be a street, just as a street can be a building.
For example: public space – On special occasions;
Muslims using an entire street for worship, a street is used as a church or
congregation for example for the USA Presidential election, or Royal wedding.
But be careful, because the people become “ants” again.
The street is very important, even if it was only for the occasion national celebration,
eg. Queens Day.

The people when they are all together in a large scale, for example on Queens Day
or Liberation Day, feel a great sense of collective togetherness, and for many this is
immensely satisfying, because people coming together for celebration is positive and
uplifting and contrasts our collective notion of togetherness, which is (or was) about
being together in times of war.

::

Corbusierʼs Unite: “the roof is fantastic” – exclusively concrete (+water) and not even
any greenery.
Itʼs a sculpture. A sculpture where people can be.
Corbusier as an architect actually thought about ʻdesignʼ, thought about his roof top,
the privacy of it, even design the concrete chairs / benches on the roof in a very
particular way: deep enough for relaxation and with a high enough back for total
privacy.
He though about “primary human behavour”
He was not thinking – how can I make a fantastic design?

::

In Italy there are sitting situation everywhere: plazas, outside churches, buildings,
etc, and even happy accidents; like the base of an ancient column to sit on.
Architecture should be molded so it can contain people, to attract people and keep
them attracted.
Though, it is not necessarily about sitting. It is about how architecture is molded to
the human behavour.
This view is the complete opposite to the architecture treating people as “ants”
(distant architecture).
We need to be near-by architects.

::
Gaudiʼs park Guell has curved wall-like benches, made with colorful ceramic. The
deep looping curves of these benches gives the public the opportunity to sit and
groups and interact with one another.
At the end of these looping benches, they open out to give us the possibility to sit and
look out on the splendid view over Barcelona.

It is public architectural interventions, like this one, which gives us the social starting
point, which is so crucial in architecture.

::

How can we get people to participate in architecture?

We can have meetings with clients and understand what they are looking for, but this
is too easy and normally architectures with their hidden agendas of design just do
what they want anyway, but how do you create an architecture which is also inviting
people to do something themselves.
This is what the aim of structuralism should be.
“The performance next to the competence.” We make the competence so it can be
performed in, at, or on by the people.

::

Schools
1. The classroom / closet
2. Being together. eg. a bar in the centre (like in the AA). It is about
communication and people

The role of the architect is to create the conditions for people to be aware of each
other, and to get in contact with one another.
This is not nesicarily for “meeting” (meeting people) – “that is sentimental”
It is about seeing people.. When you see someone – it is not yet a meeting – it could
become a meeting, but it is just that you are aware of each other, and that you are
not completely distant.

::

“Split Levels Building”

Secondary school Montassori (college Oost) Amsterdam.
When Herman was working in TU Delftʼs old BK building, he was not aware, for 10
years, that his friend and college was also working on the floor directly below him.
Floors – “they separate completely different worlds”. They “slice” worlds.
The fire department wants us to slice off our floors.
“Our biggest enemies is the fire department.”
How can we over come the fire department?

For the Secondary school Montassori (college Oost) Amsterdam, Herman put the
galleries on the inside parameter of the building, so they could also be used as fire
escapes, consequently they could make the entire building open.

::

The importance of stairs and the design of them in a certain way where you can
really see each other. For example with the use of glass balustrades and rails, so it is
possible to look up and down and see other people.

::

“The opportunity to see and be seen”.

NHL University Leeuwarden 2004

“Office landscapes” with articulated parts and areas where people can work freely.
It is about ʻlookingʼ and ʻbeing looked atʼ.
The building should become a sort of theatre.
And a feeling of being inspired by others, who are working their.
Similar to BK City.

::

“Architecture should lose more ground and do more for life and the back-drop of the
city”.

Do not make buildings as big sculptures.

Architecture is not art. Architecture is architecture.
Architecture makes conditions for being together and for being alone and everything
in between.
Architecture is a “Base”.

::

We should make conditions more than solutions

“The richness of poorness” or “economy of means”

Create something which is eternal.
Without capital. Without ornament

::

It is far better to do something which makes sense in the social world – part of the
society.

Try and contribute – try to keep society together.

ʻBetter the societyʼ – this is “an understatement” – things are falling apart today.
“Use your talent and your energy to do something for the world”