Villa Thérèse school building | Fribourg

Competition 1999 | 2000 - 2003

Project manager: Felix Gut, Dipl. Arch. HTL

Colour concept: Jörg Niederberger, Niederrickenbach
Photographer: Ignacio Martinez, A-Lustenau

The old “Villa Thérèse” school building, a converted boarding school from the turn of the century, was extended to include fourteen classrooms for the primary school, four kindergarten classes and a double sports hall. The three individual volumes inserted into the park, each with a different use, were grouped around the existing school building. Unlike their coarse outward expression, the interior of the three buildings is characterised by fine surfaces and a colour concept developed together with an artist. The three new buildings react in their internal structure to the respective relationship to the park and the other buildings. The primary school building consists of a series of rooms with varying orientation: towards the central court, towards the sloping meadow, to the treetops or to the historical city centre with the landmark of the cathedral spire. In the case of the kindergarten, the entrance and playing area is overlapped by the perpendicular sequence of classrooms. The sports hall volume is lowered into the terrain towards the slope. Above it, the glazing covering the entire width of the hall affords a view through the opposite glazing and on into the hilly terrain.