CSG Reggesteyn: Creating a futureproof, nature-inclusive school campus
When designing the secondary school CSG Reggesteyn, we wanted to create a futureproof school campus in harmony with the beautiful surrounding heathland landscape in the Twente region of the Netherlands. We wanted to design an inspiring school with a clear focus on outdoor sports and practical learning – a space where students can tend the vegetable garden together with local residents and learn about biodiversity.
CSG Reggesteyn is a socially-conscious school that lives and breathes the local concept of ‘noaberschap’ – students, teachers, and local residents take care of one another. With this in mind, we designed a school campus on a human scale that exudes a safe and inviting atmosphere while embracing an open and accessible spatial architecture where everyone feels welcome.
We made a conscious, sustainable choice not to demolish the existing school building, but to transform and renovate the school building on Noetselerbergweg instead and to merge this into one nature-inclusive and energy-neutral school campus. We will re-purpose disused building materials to create new cocoon-shaped, multifunctional learning pavilions that will be scattered across the entire green campus. These pavilions will host their own educational programs and can also be used for after-school workshops and activities for local residents too. This new circular typology provides the perfect opportunity to continue to build and transform the flexible school campus so that it is ready for future developments and different uses, making it futureproof for new needs as these emerge.
