SHA Scheffler Helbich Architekten GmbH
Phoenixplatz 3
44263 Dortmund
New building for the adult education center in Dortmund
Competition
The new Volkshochschule Dortmund building offers the opportunity to precisely reoccupy the exposed location between Brinkhoffstraße and Königswall with a compact building form, thus closing the gaping urban gap on the Wall and creating a head-end building.
As an urban volume, the new VHS fits into the existing urban structure, reacts by complementing the different existing building typologies and thus mediates between the urban structures with its calm basic form in a heterogeneous environment.
While the building on the east side facing the Wall brings the existing perimeter block development to a clean end, it forms a clear head to the south facing the Park of the Twin Cities. On the west side, the building presents itself as an independent response to its solitary counterparts such as the “Dortmunder U” and its surrounding buildings. At the same time, it defines an independent entrance to the city in the area after the Brinkhoffstrasse tunnel together with the Thyssengas point building. Despite its connection to the perimeter block development on Königswall, the building has sufficient solitary character to form a new focal point at the Brinkhoffstraße/Königswall intersection, in addition to its function in terms of content.
The building is modest, blends in and relates to the existing listed building, with which it will stand in symbiosis in the future: it takes up the existing storey heights and is therefore barrier-free on all storeys.
It picks up on the existing roof and develops an independent roof landscape for the entire ensemble. It picks up on the Oldenburg clinker brick and thus develops a joint whole from the old and new buildings.
The center of the building forms a staggered atrium above all floors with learning terraces, which complement the classic space offered by the seminar rooms with various movement, expansion and possibility areas. It is precisely these open and lively zones that connect the different services in the building horizontally and vertically, creating open learning landscapes outside the seminar areas on the one hand and defining a common center through the vertical visual and pathway connections on the other. They extend the usual room program to the platforms and thus make learning visible.
The classrooms on the floors are arranged around this common center and are all located on the outer façade, providing ideal learning conditions with maximum use of daylight. Depending on the direction of the compass, the horizontal windows provide a view of the “U”, the square of the twin cities or the silhouette of the city. The fundamentally open building structure and the interior cores also allow flexible changes to the rooms in the long term.
Figures and
Facts
- Place: Dortmund
- Non-open realization competition according to VgV 2016 & RPW 2013
- Recognition for SHA
- Planning competition of the city of Dortmund: 2018/19
- GFA: Existing building 1,950 m² I New building 11,400 m²
- Assessment by the jury on competitionline
- First prize was awarded to the office "B+P Reiner Becker GmbH", Berlin. The second prize went to "Bowlin Wulf Architekten Partnerschaft mbB", also an office from the capital. The jury awarded third prize to "bertbielefeld & partner architekten und ingenieure", Dortmund.
- Room program: Mixed use of seminar rooms, conference rooms, an administration area, a bistro and a museum
The present concept provides for seminar rooms on each floor that can be opened up and thus extended by means of mobile partition walls, which in their diversity and flexibility promote new pedagogical concepts in which the room is used as a third pedagogue, because school is understood as a place to live with a high quality of stay and optimal learning conditions.
Overall, the compact circulation system around the common center creates an easy-to-understand orientation within the entire building because all uses are accessed via a common corridor. The visual connections within the building to the other floors, as well as through the open learning landscapes to the surroundings, support this orientation and openness. The high spatial and architectural quality gives education and its protagonists the appropriate appreciation.
The two entrance floors 0 and -1 support the open concept of cultural and social exchange by spatially linking the arrival, information, waiting and café areas.
The transition between the uses is fluid, but can also be separated at any time due to different times of use.
The first floor of the building is very transparent on the outside and opens up to visitors as another player along the educational and museum mile between the “U” and the main station.
The design of the plinth in the Brinkhoffstrasse area strengthens the visual link to the Leonie Reygers Terrace opposite the “Dortmunder U”. In terms of interior functionality, the base with its large floor height accommodates the cookbook museum, the kitchens and the large multi-purpose rooms. The arrangement on the separate basement floor means that the cookbook museum and the multi-purpose rooms in particular can also be operated separately outside the regular opening hours of the VHS. External use of the multi-purpose rooms would also be possible.
The façade is planned as a highly insulated facing brickwork with Oldenburg clinker bricks. The new building thus takes up the materiality of the listed building in order to create a common whole from the two components of the existing and new buildings. The material of the clinker brick is reinterpreted with its very uniform, horizontal structure of profiled bricks and forms the link between the brick ensemble on the “U” and the monument. In order to differentiate it from the existing building, the masonry on the wall is set back by the thickness of the projecting risalit. There is also a great deal of independence in the area of windows: While the old building essentially accommodates the required small-scale office spaces and this is reflected in the existing, equally small-scale window structure, the new building accommodates the large-scale rooms, which are reflected on the outside by large horizontal windows. The glazing bar windows in the existing building are reinterpreted by the very regular arrangement of openable window sashes. This also enables economical cleaning and maintenance costs.
»Our idea for the new VHS complex was to develop a joint whole from the existing and new buildings.«
Marc HorstmeierAuthorized signatory
In order to powerfully emphasize the monolithic shape of the building, the clinker brick material is also transferred to the roof and continued there in the form of clinker shingles. The sloping eaves emphasize the respective urban planning situation in the urban space. The material of the clinker shingles can accommodate the horizontal façade structure in the same way as the masonry clinker and can be covered on the existing roof of the monument without further structural support.
The required parking spaces will be positioned on the northern part of the property in the newly created base. The plinth replaces the existing embankments at the same height, which means that no additional clearance areas are created.
The necessary bicycle parking spaces are arranged decentrally. The majority of the bicycle parking spaces in the base can be weather-protected and covered.
Energy concept
As a public building, the new VHS is a role model. The design also does justice to this in terms of climate and environmental protection with a high level of value retention and energy efficiency, as the building is planned as a passive house.
The building is proposed as a passive house standard with optimized daylight autonomy, a hybrid ventilation concept consisting of night cooling, use of thermal masses, an alternative room acoustics concept and regenerative energy generation based on a district heating connection and a photovoltaic system.
With this integrated architectural-technical concept, the structural possibilities are first fully exploited in order to meet the energy requirements. The lean technology used, with reduced maintenance and consumption costs, merely compensates for the difference between the actual and target status.
The hybrid ventilation concept brings fresh air with very low air movement into the seminar areas as basic ventilation, which is then discharged again via the interior WC areas and checkrooms. In addition, the proportion of fresh air is CO2-controlled via a soffit ventilation system, naturally as forced ventilation during breaks. To increase subjective comfort, additional manually operated panels can be opened in each seminar room. In terms of thermal comfort, a low-tech concept is also proposed in which the solid concrete ceilings act as a storage mass, supported by concrete core activation. Instead of suspended ceilings, vertical acoustic baffles are used for sound absorption, which keep the concrete ceiling free and can increase its acoustically effective area by being positioned vertically.
The aim is to avoid costly and maintenance-intensive technology in order to keep life cycle costs low.
In summary, the new building blends naturally into its urban context without pushing itself to the fore.
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