BRAINS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, MARÍA LOMBILLO 9

Sometimes one is lucky enough to be involved in processes that can only bring good things.

When they accepted our two proposals: “new educational spaces” and a record of not consuming non-renewable energy, we saw that this could only bring “good things”.

The fact that the classrooms in this new high school building are open-plan, expandable and equipped with all technologies, wasn’t new. The new thing was that learning could take place outside the classroom.

A family of spaces, formally similar, like the silhouette of an old key changed in scale, with a circular perimeter bench, host these encounters.

The first one in the access, wants to disappear with a specular facade between adult trees. It is the first space for a teacher to have a conversation with parents. He also teaches, under overhead lights, the activities of the school.

The second, in the heart of the ground floor, encourages work in small groups of students, tutorials from a teacher, moments of individual relaxation.

The third is the best. A bleacher-library space opened to a surprising raised garden. Two giant sliding leaves (and sophisticated to meet Passivhaus Premium standards), at many times of the year, link interior and exterior spaces, where some students are with their ipads in the bleachers, while others lie down on the grass or sit on circular benches around 4 adult trees.

From the outside, the raised garden with large deciduous trees (the slab breaks to leave 1.25 meters of soil), wants to tell that there is another way to learn, looking at utopias of other times. Its artificial lighting, projecting the leaves in the glass on the facade, produces attractive and unreal images.

Inside the gym we have put some recycled portholes from other works (made of fireproof glass) so that the students can look into their machine room, allowing them to see where the Canadian wells go, how aerothermal works, how far does photovoltaic energy goes.

The discussion about the building itself and its strategies as a teaching window.

DATA
Architects: De Lapuerta + Campo Arquitectos SLP
Jose Maria de Lapuerta Montoya
Paloma Campo Ruano

Team

Irene Cámara Ruiz. Arquitecto
Ignacio Burgos González
Lucia Ortiz de Galisteo. Arquitecto
Blanca Muñoz de la Espada. Arquitecto
Ingenierías externas
Valladares Ingeniería. Instalaciones y estructuras
Daimat. Instalación de climatización
Zero Energy. Passivhaus

Promoter: Colegio Brains
Surface: 1.270 m2

RELATED WORKS
De Lapuerta y Campo | Calle Vicente Gaceo, 19, 28029 Madrid, Spain | Phone: +34 917 339 265 | contacto@delapuerta.com