De Kleine Pijler

Together with parents and the school board, PLUS architecten committed themselves to create an enhanced and more pleasant temporary school building within a healthier context. This was done in close cooperation with the Youth and Education Department of the Municipality of Rotterdam. The temporary character of the building, made out of standard units, asks for an inventive and budget driven solution. In most cases this kind of projects with standard units leads to dull and sad buildings that do wrong to its context and users. However, this shouldn't be! By the application of an innovative facade material and both an open floorplan and facade, the clustered units get a special appearance. As a result the units form a unity and break away from the idea of standardization. The floor plan, consisting of a series of fixed unit modules, is programmed in such a manner that spaces open up to the exterior with the internal corridor as a starting point. By doing so the building is able to respond better to daylight en view lines which therefore leads to a direct relationship with its surroundings. The so-called 'hotel room effect' of an endless corridor without daylight and views and with many closed doors wil be avoided with this approach resulting in an open building. The oversized corridor with its local widenings allows for a muli-functional use. The corridor can also serve as a playground or a learning zone. Besides a series of horizontal windows at different heights each class-room has one or more king-size openings giving the rooms daylight and views. The meandering facade panels move around the building like a snake and transform the building into a dynamic sculpture. The flush detailling of the roof edge and the windows guarantees a clear sculpture without unnecessary bulges and edges. The facade is made of HPL (High Pressure Laminate) compact panels which are treated with a Vectogramm milling technique, in this particular form a facade innovation. On each of the four facades a 'full-screen' image has been milled into the panels expressing the four themes of the school: independant, structure, committed and social. This leads to an alienation of scale and to the visual support of the educational activities that take place within the building. From a distance one experiences the facade in a different way than from nearby. At a distance of 30 meters one can observe the images as dead sharp and discover the scale and expression of the image, while from close distance a blur-effect appears resulting in an experience of texture and sensibility instead of the scale of the image. Because of the application of relatively wide milling lines one can experience the building differently from every angle. Through this alteration of a standard unit not only a more pleasant school building with its own identity arises but the building itself also forms surplus value for its surroundings. In conclusion a few words from Leonard Geluk, alderman of Youth, Family and Education, during the official opening of 'De kleine Pijler' on October 8th 2008: "De Kleine Pijler is the most beautiful and most innovative building of Rotterdam and will from now on be the new standard for quality and image of temporary accomodation in Rotterdam".