The need for a greater number of educational facilities in urban areas can become a catalyst for unusual solutions. Since central locations for school buildings are in high demand, communally owned plots are being redensified in already densely developed areas. The Längenfeldgasse Primary and Vocational School project, opened in 2020, is a good example of redensification in that sense. The new building contains a novel combination of a 17-class Primary school (for children aged 6 to 10) and a vocational school, consisting of 23 classes (for students aged 15 to 19).
The primary school has become a Viennese state-of-the-art school building that meets all requirements of contemporary teaching. It consists of four clusters, each with four educational spaces, and each of those are grouped around a learning landscape. There are team rooms for teachers within the cluster organization. Each
educational room has an appendix that can be used as a nest or an oasis of quietude. As classes are stapled one on another an age-related adaptation of the cluster system is realized in the vocational school.
To ensure that the building requires as little ground area as possible, it has six stories and is therefore relatively high in the Viennese context. The primary school, which is extremely compact, is situated in the horizontal part of the building on the ground floor and first floor, in a rectangular shape of 50 by 64 meters., while the vocational school is accommodated in the vertical part, which tapers towards the top. There is a „practice firm“ on top of the building overlooking the city.
The large terrace above the primary school and the staggered terraces tapering towards the top in front of the vocational school are an integral part of educational space-related considerations. Here, the school is activated as a landscape in the city.
