The new Herningsholm Vocational School asserts itself as an independent building in an existing campus cluster of educational buildings.
The school is designed inside-out - with a focus on the creation of optimal learning and study environments - as well as out-side-in, in relation to the surrounding context where welcoming urban spaces provide possibilities for outdoor work and teaching.
The building takes into account that our behavior and thinking is shaped by the physical environment we are in. The form of the learning environment - the architecture - has a significant impact on the student's daily learning processes, and is therefore designed for modern and democratic principles.
The angular layout brings together three building volumes under a sloping roof, which in scale responds to the surroundings by dropping from three floors furthest south to two floors in the far north. The layout creates three new out-door urban and learning spaces, and the landscape design supports the learning experience as well as the climate-adaptation of the wider area.
The learning spaces are organized around a unifying common space that also serves as a flexible learning environment. They are grouped 2 and 2 so as to create direct access to the common study space, which also offers varied physical environments to work in, from the double-height rooms facing the garden, suitable for workshop-like uses, to a student café space for informal gatherings of students, to dedicated study corners of quieter and more intimate character.