PSI combines students from 40 countries. This was the starting point for the development of the project concept. The school has large classrooms, transformable spaces of the assembly and sports halls, rooms for drama and extracurricular activities.
Objective:
Attaching a new building to the existing ones of an operational school
Creating an education environment conformant with the International Baccalaureate® (IB) academic program
Hardships:
Our key difficulties lied in engineering solutions: for example, most networks have already been in place, so we were confined within the framework of existing solutions
At the end of work on the already approved P phase, the client requested to accommodate a swimming pool in the new building
A limit on power supply narrowed the selection of engineering equipment
Solutions:
We took several elements from the architecture of old buildings and transferred them to the new one to combine different styles, different ages and different architecture. These were the number of stories, beige and brown colors
We used new materials as the basis for the new building, and added several new bright colors
Unconventional solutions for organization of the school’s space became a response to the new academic program. Since this school devotes substantial attention to theatrical art, sports and off-school activities, we designed multifunctional zones for it
The school’s large gymnasium features retractable seating which can accommodate many spectators during various events, and has a special partition which can divide the gym into two parts for simultaneous use by different groups
The area between the buildings is broken down in several grounds with an amphitheater for senior and junior students
The assembly hall represents a transformable space with mobile stage and movable lighting for various stage adaptations
Thanks to a heat pump, the schools’ building has almost fully autonomous heating system
We have developed a 6D operating model of the building, along with its dispatch control and mechanization, to control performance and monitor maintenance of all engineering systems
Facts and details:
The school has an auditorium called Black Box for theater classes. In this auditorium, all walls, the floor and ceiling are black for better perception of stage effects
The school’s new building requires less heat supply from the city main thanks to a heat pump
The school has large, 90-100 sq.m classrooms