2008–2009 Research Project “Baustelle Schule” (Construction Site School)

Research project “Baustelle Schule”. Sustainable Refurbishment and Restructuring of the Comprehensive School of Tomorrow, funded by the program “Building of Tomorrow”, part of the initiative “Technologies for Sustainable Development” of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT), with Maja Lorbek, Edeltraud Haselsteiner, Gerhild Stosch.
New demographic changes and requirements indicate an adaptation of the school building stock. But this process is complicated by the fact that a high percentage of existing schools is in bad shape and needs urgent refurbishment. Therefore it is very important to develop future-oriented measures now, otherwise sustainable technologies will not be introduced. Energy-oriented refurbishments today are mainly based on the scheme of improving heat insulation in the whole building. In opposition to such “classical methods”, we try to find a method differentiated on basis of building typology. This is possible by detecting structures according to the building type which allow for energy-oriented improvements without destruction of the architectural concept. Sustainability is also based on consideration of architectural concepts of the respective building tradition. The weakness of many refurbishment concepts is the neglect of functional reorganization. Based on recent results from the programme and on a classification of the existing school building stock, we evaluated and implemented the produced knowledge in relation to this stock and to propose optimum refurbishment methods. A very important aspect was the coverage of future trends in school organization, based on prognoses and international examples of best practice for school refurbishment. The results were presented in The School Manual. Architecture and Planning Basics, A guideline to ecologically sustainable refurbishment of schools. Manual (5.5 MB) and Final Report (4.7 MB) are available online, but only in German.
The project received the Österreichische Bau-Preis 2011 (Austrian Building Prize) in the “Research and Development” category.