Renovation of the elementary school in Kaufering can start

Created: 06/28/2022, 09:01

By: Andrea Schmelzle

Gabled instead of hipped roofs: This is the design for the renovation of the Kaufering elementary school, which the market town council unanimously approved.

© Kurczinski

Kaufering – The preliminary draft becomes a draft, then a building application: As part of the general renovation of the Kaufering elementary school, the object planning was further developed on the basis of the preliminary draft planning that had already been approved (as reported by KREISBOTE).

The draft has now been submitted to the municipal council for approval as the basis for the next steps.

On Wednesday last week, the council members unanimously approved the building application – and the building application derived from it. 

Architect Kristin Kurczinski initiated her planning for the building renovation, saying that it is a question of several components from different construction periods, which are arranged on a "generous plot" (7,276 square meters), directly adjacent to the middle school, the gymnasium and the canteen.

Basically, not much has changed, said Andreas Giampa, head of the building authority.

For reasons of statics, a few small things had been optimized on the way from preliminary design to design, and the new building area had become "a little squarer".

Instead of the hipped roofs planned in the draft, the decision was made to use three gable roofs in order to "fit in wonderfully" with the existing roof shape, according to Giampa.

Kurczinski said the aim was to incorporate the middle school's fiber cement panels on the façade in order to create a uniform complex.

For sufficient sun protection, sliding shutters are to be installed in components 1 (lunchtime care in the basement, classrooms on the ground floor) and 2 (classrooms), the new building will have folding shutters - all elements that can also be found in the middle school.

The entire middle part as a connecting building, with school administration, staff room and auditorium, is planned as a new building on two levels.

A recessed entrance, a cascade staircase around two meters wide and the auditorium with a glass roof as the “new center”: on the one hand a meeting point, on the other hand an integrated “learning cluster” are the essential features.

Components 1 and 2 are being renovated and will offer space for 16 instead of 14 classes in the future.

Significantly larger classrooms, walls that can be moved, adjoining differentiation rooms for working in small groups or with tutoring, corridors, open learning zones, seating areas: the new elementary school should be “innovative and future-proof”, according to the architect.

Both parts are each provided with a lift: on the outside in component 1, on the inside in component 2. Colors are to be used "like a box of colored pencils",

according to Kurczinski.

Topics such as accessibility and inclusion are also taken into account, but some of them still need to be agreed - for example on the topic of signage systems with tactile means for children with visual impairments.

According to Giampa, 280 bicycle parking spaces would be built: not all directly in front of the main entrance, but distributed over the site, most of them covered, especially to the east of the gymnasium.

You could "walk ten meters sometimes," said the head of the building authority, who promised to redesign the site to be bicycle-friendly.

Maybe you have to relocate car parking spaces to another location, which is still being examined.

The safety of the cascade staircase was also under review, if only because of the "terror aspect", as Cäcilie Nebel (Greens) noted.

According to Giampa, the staircase is being examined by an insurer: "Everything is still adaptable" and designed in such a way that it can still be varied.

The council unanimously approved the design and planning application.

The aim is to submit the building and funding application as early as next week, including the early start of the measures, so that work can begin as early as possible this year.

The costs, which remained the same at 16.9 million euros (including a 20 percent risk discount), did not have to come to a decision.