A unique establishment in a unique location. The St. Nicolaaslyceum forms an integrated part of society, has ambitiously modern views and an open-minded outlook where education is concerned. Sports and culture are the spearheads that make the school stand out. Based on a vision that stimulates education and likes to offer its students a challenge, the design has resulted in a building that offers both security and challenges while supporting the educational concept. There is room for a wide range of cultural expression, stage performances, auditoriums, theatre facilities, exhibition walls and showcases. The concept of sports has been integrated in the building as a whole. Sunken below ground level, the sports accommodation offers extensive sports facilities, while on the outside it is covered with basketball pitches that students can use during their breaks.
The central atrium connects the various spaces and provides ample light and air while making the building easy to understand and navigate. The concept of Discover as you Learn is made visible in the building by the large diversity of working and teaching environments, the visibility of the supporting structure and systems, and by an interactive panel that visualises the school’s sustainability level.
Interwoven The new building of the St. Nicolaaslyceum is located along the Amsterdam South Axis, where the Beethoven District meets the Beatrix Park. Its outside areas make the school into an inseparable part of its surroundings. The central atrium is oriented towards the park and the public square, two directions that converge in the atrium to convey a sense of space. External spaces fan out through the building and can become playing field, urban balcony, trial garden or roof terrace for outdoor experiments. The sports hall has been turned around to create a gradual entrance route from the Beethovenstraat. The large expanse of steps provides seating to make the space suitable for performances. The dark grey tone of the building’s plinth blends in with the outdoor space. The pale green stripes of the educational level above it feature a soft relief that echoes the willows in the park. The rounded corners and the gradual transitions between internal and external spaces give the building a soft and welcoming look. The Mirror Tree by artist Anouk Vogel on the large glass facade almost literally pulls the park into the atrium and across to the more urbanised south side.
Giving shape to an educational concept The central atrium rises through five floors to form the heart of the St. Nicolaaslyceum. This is where everybody enters the building, where students have their break on the bleachers, where theatre productions are staged, and from where students and teachers fan out into the rest of the school building. Rising from the oak bleacher steps, the central staircase spirals upwards around the grand lobby like an aubergine carpet. Each of the floors offers a view of the central lobby, making it a perfect point of reference as well as creating a sense of intimacy and security inside the compact building.
Each cluster of subjects has been given its own floor: the three sport facilities are below ground level, the first floor accommodates the cultural subjects, with languages on the second floor, social sciences on the third floor, exact sciences on the fourth floor, and biology on the fifth. The staff rooms and offices are located on an intermediate floor, easily accessible but away from the hustle and bustle and with a view of the atrium and the school canteen. On the upper floors, the classrooms are arranged on the outside, surrounding multifunctional open areas. At the top of the bleacher stairs, the multimedia centre sits below the mezzanine space that stretches upwards to the atrium roof on the park side to the north. The lockers are integrated in the classroom walls, so they are spread throughout the building.
Sustainability The St. Nicolaaslyceum is designed with a high target level of sustainability on mind. This target was picked up by the design team right from the beginning of the design process. The plan is designed to ensure that the building makes optimum use of its orientation towards the sun to save energy, of its orientation towards and view of the park to provide a maximum of visual benefits, and of its atrium space as the heart of the building. The building has a very low energy performance coefficient, and achieves high energy savings thanks to its energy and systems concept.
The all-in design approach to architecture, functionality, supporting structure, systems and building physics has resulted in a highly compact, sustainable, flexible and optimised educational facility. Sustainability is an integrated part of the concept, with the atrium contributing a great deal to the systems concept by making use of solar heat and the rising hot air. A compact building, optimised use of available daylight, overhangs and sun blinds in the east, south and west facades, daylight-controlled high-frequency lighting, and naturally durable materials are all low-tech applications that have been integrated into the overall design. More technologically involved solutions such as underground heat and cold buffering in combination with an active concrete core in the floors, a balanced and carbon dioxide-controlled ventilation system with heat recovery (and a very high efficiency of 90%) as well as photovoltaic roof panels contribute to make this a highly sustainable low-energy building. What’s more, this sustainability is visualised by means of an ‘energy mirror’ to show the students what the actual effects are.
The windows in every room can be opened. In terms of air quality, thermal comfort (e.g. the use of radiated heat to avoid draughts), visual comfort and acoustics, the St. Nicolaaslyceum also scores very well thanks to the integrated approach and the meticulous interaction between design, structure, systems en building physics. The choice of materials ensures that maintenance requirements are minimal while at the same time the external appearance is one of warmth: the external edges of the timber facade cladding are protected by aluminium trim, and the concrete facade features a soft relief surface.
Interior The interior elements for the restaurant, the staff room and the multimedia centre were designed in close consultation with the school’s students and staff. The school asked for a minimum of loose chairs in the restaurant, and no tables at all. Students can sit and ‘lounge’, but not at tables. Purpose-designed furniture offers seating and lounging space at various different levels. The undulating benches interspersed with circular seating elements combine to create seating areas near the terrace, near the water, and near the park. The theatre benches can be arranged in lines of seating for small theatre performances, or joined back-to-back for breaks. All the benches feature a half-tone print showing an old map of Amsterdam.
In the staff room the oval tables from the original staff room have been reused, with the surfaces sprayed glossy white. The booths along one side of the room offer more secluded seating for informal meetings or quiet work. The smoked oak flooring combines with the red bench and booths to create a warm and stylish atmosphere.
The multimedia centre at the top of the main bleacher stairs opens onto a mezzanine space overlooking the park. The bookcases have been arranged so as not to block the view of the park from the staircase, and to ensure that each of the study locations can be seen from the main desk. White closets are located below the mezzanine space and are linked together by texts that run across them and the floor. The texts can be seen from the upper floors and create a link with the languages cluster on floor directly above. The main desk is located directly inside the entrance and gives a clear view of anybody entering or leaving the building. Inside the multimedia centre a number of different study locations have been created, each with a unique atmosphere. There are computer locations on long tables, a table surrounding the tree, reading desks next to the bookcases, and places for concentrated study at long desks arranged along the outer wall, offering a view of the park.
