A diverse children's and culture centre wins Danish School Building of the Year
Høje-Taastrup Children's and Culture Centre brings together daycare, school, SFO and culture under one roof. The building has now been awarded the title of Danish School Building of the Year 2023. The 9,500-square-metre building is built in four clusters, each with its own visual style. Several variants of Troldtekt solutions contribute to the superior acoustics.
At the start of 2023, Høje-Taastrup gained a local anchor point that houses a wide range of services especially for children and young people. On Monday 14 August, the project team behind the Children's and Culture Centre in Høje-Taastrup was honoured with winning the Danish School Building of the Year 2023 award.
The new building on Taastrupgårdsvej is the first in Denmark to combine daycare, school, SFO and cultural activities under one roof with an area of 9,500 square metres. Christensen and Co Architects and Kjaer & Richter Architects designed the building.
"It was particularly important to us that the building design creates a framework for small and large communities across both education and leisure activities, thereby supporting strong bonds between children and culture. The building clearly stands out as the cultural centre for the entire neighbourhood and is built as a 'living community' for daycare centres, schools and the cultural schools, which share the open workshop facilities on the ground floor."
Mikkel Sørensen, architect and partner at Christensen & Co, summed up the architectural vision in connection with the award ceremony. One of the things the expert jury emphasised was that the project is “convincing in both external and internal parameters” with an organisational structure that seems “easy to manage and robust in its thinking”.
Durable materials and a light interior
The award-winning building was built to be suitable for many types of activities at different times of the day. In addition to the classrooms and childcare institutions, it consists of two sports halls, a motor skills development hall, two visual arts rooms, six music rooms and audiovisual rooms. The school is constructed as four so-called ‘cultural clusters’, for music, technology, creativity and movement, each of which has its own style. At its heart is a ‘cultural square’ with a central staircase.
Brick, concrete, wood and glass are used throughout the building, both inside and out. Plentiful daylight flows into the building and contributes to a light expression, where features like the zoned flooring colours, for example, are allowed to stand out.
The children’s and cultural centre features several variants of Troldtekt acoustic solutions, which contribute to a healthy indoor climate with good acoustics. Troldtekt in natural wood is used in the school's general areas, while the sports halls have grey Troldtekt installed on the walls.
“Quite apart from its superb acoustic properties, Troldtekt creates a naturally warm look that complements the other surfaces harmoniously and coherently. This results in a calm overall impression in the rooms,” architect and partner at Christensen & Co Architects Mikkel Sørensen concludes.
See more photos from Høje-Taastrup Children's and Culture Centre
FACTS AND FIGURES: About the Danish School Building of the Year 2023 award
- Conference and event company Nohrcon is behind the Danish School Building of the Year award. The award was presented for the 11th time in 2023.
- The expert jury’s assessment has a 15 per cent weighting in the decision, while the public vote weighs 85 per cent. 1,300 people took part in the 2023 vote.
- The other four nominees were: Frederiksborg Inner-city School – ‘Bakkefløjen’ in Hillerød, Frederiksværk School in Halsnæs Municipality, Skolecenter Jetsmark in Jammerbugt Municipality, UC Syd, Campus Kolding.
- In 2022, Vrå Children’s and Culture Centre received the award, while in 2021 it went to Erlev Skole.
