Kalvebod Fælled School / Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects

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The ambition has been to fully seize the site without fences or barriers while softly balancing the unique landscape and the active social community set to unfold here. The focus is on the everyday integration of movement and learning. Kalvebod Fælled School provides solid, inspiring learning and leisure time conditions for children and adults alike. In nature, circularity typically arises from concentration or dispersion around a center. At Kalvebod Fælled School, the gymnasium at the core of the building extends its energy to all five floors.Text description provided by the architects.Kalvebod Fælled School creates the framework for lifelong learning. Here, a social vision of sports and children leading active lives finds its shape. The school is situated in the protected landscape of Ørestad South inCopenhagen, between the grazing cattle and the city. It’s an open, bustling community. When the school day ends for the students, others join; parents and local community residents use the gymnasium and classrooms for sports, courses, and social events.On ground floor level the school reaches out towards the landscape and the adjacent city. The result is a gentle integration between the protected landscape and the outdoor playground, a fusion also echoed in the sparkling, polished concrete floors indoors, as if the landscape of Kalvebod Fælled had shed its green coat to display the bright salt meadow below, gently speckled with embedded rocks.From the gymnasium, a series of spaces are undulated. Firstly, atriums carried by exposed concrete columns that run the entire height of the building provide clear views of the gymnasium from all floors. Subsequently the rings making up the floors ensue, spreading into generous common areas while densifying into classrooms closer to the façade, for focused classroom work.