Site and relevance for the Municipality of Kössen
The new Kössen Education Centre is located at an urbanistically sensitive interface that forms the northern edge of the municipality’s settlement core. The building ensemble positions itself as an identity-forming place at the heart of the town, along the existing access road to the triple sports hall and the retirement and nursing home. Key civic institutions such as the town hall, the church and the community stage are situated immediately nearby.
By consolidating primary school, kindergarten, nursery, after-school care and sports hall under one roof, the project sets a strong signal for a forward-looking and connective educational landscape. It is conceived not only as a place for learning and care, but as a cultural centre for generations, strengthening social cohesion. As an interface between public life and the adjacent residential neighbourhoods, the building assumes an important role in the municipality’s continuity and future development.
Organisation and spatial structure
The education centre is conceived as a layered spatial landscape that responds to different age groups and programmatic requirements while creating places for community and exchange. The individual institutions—kindergarten, school and after-school care—are each accessed via dedicated entrances from the central covered forecourt. In this way, a clear address is established under one continuous roof.
Internally, the organisation balances autonomy and community: while each programme remains functionally independent, internal connections, sightlines and transitional zones foster togetherness and encounters across age groups. The placement of volumes follows a logical stepped arrangement: a three-storey school wing extends the defining main axis and forms a pronounced termination of the settlement structure. The two-storey kindergarten relates to the height of the triple sports hall, while the single-storey after-school care wing mediates towards the neighbouring residential buildings.
These height graduations articulate the exterior spaces and define squares, gardens and play areas that can be used flexibly. The resulting ensemble becomes an open educational landscape in which interior and exterior interlock seamlessly.
Materiality and sustainability
The project follows an approach of reduction and longevity—an attitude that is characteristic and fundamental to Pedevilla Architects. Natural materials sourced from the region to the local area are used for nearly all surfaces and built-in elements, employed in as raw a form as possible. They are allowed—and explicitly intended—to age and mature naturally. A patina that will develop over years of operation has already been anticipated in the design and material selection.
The building may show traces of being lived in and, over time, change in tactility, smell and colouration—thereby creating, for children and adults alike, an emotional bond between architecture and nature. Regional timbers, mineral plasters and natural stone shape the surfaces; coupled with a carefully developed colour and symbol concept, they produce a comfortable, timeless atmosphere rooted in local culture and tradition.
The choice of materials and design is an expression of an attitude: sustainability is not understood as a fashionable label, but as a lived value grounded in regionality, resource conservation and durability. The exterior grounds likewise follow this principle. A nature-oriented landscape featuring tree trunks, boulders, herbs and seasonally changing planting establishes a close relationship with nature. This creates a pedagogically valuable environment that makes seasonal cycles tangible for children and fosters a respectful relationship with the environment.
A school as an emotional space of growing up
The Kössen Education Centre is more than functional infrastructure. It creates an emotional space that accompanies the first formative years of children and parents. Architecture is not understood as a rigid shell, but as a quiet, reliable companion: it provides safety, awakens curiosity and is intended to have a lasting influence on development.
For Pedevilla Architects, a school is a place where values, community and cultural awareness are formed. Architecture should convey security and stability—free from short-lived fashions, characterised by simplicity, warmth and durability. Children who grow up in such an environment experience architecture as cultural quality—an experience that shapes their relationship to learning and to life.
The education centre in Kössen is therefore understood as an investment in the future: a place that not only provides education, but also strengthens emotions, social competence and cultural identities.
