The Gustav Heinemann Comprehensive School is located in Essen-Schonnebeck, a district in the city of Essen in north-western Germany. Primarily a residential area, it is a former mining district with historical ties to coal mining. The district’s development has been influenced by the nearby Zollverein Coal Mine, once one of the largest and most productive coal mines in the world and now recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Zollverein Coal Mine has had a significant influence on the cultural and architectural landscape of Essen-Schonnebeck, including the design of Gustav Heinemann Comprehensive School. The industrial heritage of the Zollverein mine has inspired the school’s contemporary architecture. Indeed, many of the buildings in the region reflect the mine’s industrial aesthetic.
Architectural design and spatial organisation
The Gustav Heinemann Comprehensive School’s overall volume is broken down into distinct sections, resulting in clearly defined outdoor areas. Individual building sections are offset to ensure a scaled integration with the urban context. By offsetting the school’s two southern volumes, a clearly defined entrance and forecourt have been created.
The smart exterior structure extends into the interior. Rooms based around a theme are grouped within building units and connected through a central circulation axis.
The school’s forecourt leads to a two-storey forum, a meeting space that houses a range of events. The school hall and library are arranged around this central forum, completing the southern part of the new school building, which is dedicated to communal activities.
A north–south central axis acts as a boulevard. This provides clear orientation and connects individual functional areas with each other. Clusters are placed along the boulevard in recognisable year groups/learning houses. In each cluster, classrooms and informal learning areas are grouped around a courtyard, enhancing orientation and natural lighting within the corridors. The alternating arrangement of cluster units creates a varied and well-lit circulation throughout the building.
Material choices
The school’s exterior is finished with a robust masonry facade consisting of light-coloured, whitewashed facing bricks. The outward appearance is both composed and uniform. The meticulous arrangement of large window elements in a wood-aluminium construction divides the upper-floor facades (housing classrooms and science labs).
On the school’s interior, the considered use of wood-based materials enhances the building’s warmth and ambience. For instance, hard-wearing industrial parquet flooring, wooden-glass door elements, built-in furniture crafted from birch plywood, and wood-clad walls and ceilings (to improve acoustics).
Light and colour
The purposeful use of light and colour ensures a pleasant atmosphere and good orientation. Daylight reaches deep into the building, facilitated by large window openings, inner courtyards, and generously glazed entrance areas.
The school’s colour scheme is an integral component. Sehw Architecture adopted Le Corbusier’s approach to colour as set out in the famed architect’s 1931 book Polychromie Architecturale. Le Corbusier’s coherent architectural colour palette comprises 63 shades that work in harmony and create a rational system for colour application. Sehw selected five colours that harmonise well, assigning each to a cluster. The colours are used to create large pictograms and to accentuate entrances and stairways, improving orientation and producing a welcoming air.
Sustainability measures
Gustav Heinemann Comprehensive School is planned and built according to Passivhaus standards. This resulted in a 20 percent energy efficiency, surpassing the stipulated requirements set by the 2016 German Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV).
The school has achieved a BNB Silver certification. (BNB is a German certification system for sustainable buildings.) The school building is designed to be energy-efficient and sustainable, with optimal designs for all phases: planning, construction, operation, and deconstruction.
Due to the massive construction and hybrid ventilation, elaborate technologies are dispensed with. The low-tech concept only employs the technologies necessary to meet CO2 performance requirements.
A high rate of convective air exchange, also known as intermittent intensive ventilation, requires an appropriate heating system to function effectively. This system generates thermal heat through natural gas condensing boilers. The building is designed to utilise passive cooling, with individually controlled shading devices used for this purpose. In the summer, the ventilation and air-conditioning system dissipates heat through night-time cooling. As a result of the building’s energy concept, the reduction in CO2 emissions exceeds the legally required standards by approximately 35 percent.
Green roofs provide optimal heat protection in the summer months and additional thermal insulation in the winter, contributing to energy savings. Planting requires minimal effort and does not need additional watering. The structure of the green roofs safeguards their sealing, thereby reducing maintenance and operating costs. Moreover, excess water is stored and released back into the atmosphere through evaporation processes. This cooling and humidifying effect positively impacts the surrounding environment and the rooms below the green roofs.
