College with refreshing design

You can almost imagine yourself in Australia standing beside the simple yet majestic new teaching wing at Agri College in Aalborg. The large, wide, hipped steel roof gives the building character. In addition, it has a finely proportioned porch entrance facing the fields to the east. It is not a typical Danish agricultural design, but it has a refreshing attitude, which suits its surroundings.

Agri College is a busy vocational school that trains tomorrow’s farmers, landscape gardeners, zookeepers and foresters, among others. Basically, it offers a range of vocational education programmes that fall under the main subject area ‘Food, agriculture and experiences’. There is a lot of emphasis on practical manual work, and Agri is therefore also a working farm with its own land, a range of modern machinery, an SPF (specific-pathogen-free) herd of pigs, dairy cattle and a housing unit with zoo animals.

Friendly rooms with good acoustics
The interior is characterised by the Scandinavian desire for order and simplicity. A foyer with skylights and recesses extends the length of the building, and provides access to all the other rooms. The materials are not exclusive, but there is a good sense of harmony between the building’s function and its architectural design. There is also a smooth and effortless transition to the existing buildings, for example the canteen.

In most of the classrooms, Troldtekt acoustic panels in natural wood with a fine structure has been used on the ceilings. It has been traditionally installed, and the expansive sloping surfaces provide a pleasant reverberation time in the high-ceilinged rooms, and give the students the peace and quiet they need to concentrate on animal welfare, grain quality and agronomics.