Krampnitz Primary School is located on the former barracks site in the north of the state capital Potsdam. To accommodate the city‘s projected population growth and the resulting increase in demand for housing, a new urban district for around 10,000 residents is to be built on the edge of the Döberitzer Heide nature park between Lake Fahrländer and Lake Krampnitz. The entire complex, which has been unused since the 1990s, is a significant cultural and historical ensemble whose listed buildings are to be preserved and supplemented as part of the development project. With the first apartments in Krampnitz now occupied, the first infrastructure facilities are also enabling public life to begin. Incorporating two listed existing buildings, a three-stream primary school (with the option of expanding to four streams) for 600 children with an after-school care centre and double sports hall, a daycare centre for 166 children, and outdoor sports and play spaces were created.

The former barracks site reveals its ambivalence primarily through its position between a homogeneous, listed row house and gabled roof typology, the large-scale overall complex and a protected natural area. The Krampnitz primary school helps to structure and strengthen the changing neighbourhood and to define the rural quality between nature and urbanity with a new address in the center. The exterior appearance of the school complex picks up on the gabled, small-scale building structure of the surrounding area and uses historical elements such as brickwork and the theme of the roof to reinterpret it in line with the evolving requirements of a school.

The design of the building, with its stringent, efficient construction grid, sees the school as a built organism: landscape and buildings interlock, creating attractive and atmospheric learning and play areas, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside. Rooms are provided for the required functions, but also offer pupils varied open spaces for recreation and sports as part of the educational concept. The entrance plaza – Agora – forms the central arrival and meeting place for the school community. As an open space with direct access to the canteen/assembly hall, it functions as the lively centre of the ensemble. The adjacent sports facilities and school garden complement the learning environment with important spaces for exercise and regeneration. The outdoor spaces of the learning areas are designed in a differentiated manner and tailored to the respective age groups. They offer protected, safe zones for free play, exercise and creative development.

Find the Krampnitz Primary School in AFF's publication New Schools on the Block - a typological archive of 40 school designs: https://www.park-books.com/produkt/new-schools-on-the-block/1718.