Vertical Learning Landscapes
Project
- SozDia School
Theme
- Regenerative Design
Size
- 12,950 m²
Lead
- Valerie Kerz
Team
- Daniele Colombati
- Ahmed Rihan
- Christian Tschersich
- Miriam Gruber
Location
- Berlin, Germany
Typology
- Educational Space
Status
- Competition entry
Year
- 2020
Client
- SozDia Stiftung Berlin
Partner
- Tobias Wallisser
Project
- SozDia School
Location
- Berlin, Germany
Year
- 2020
Typology
- Educational Space
Theme
- Regenerative Design
Client
- SozDia Stiftung Berlin
Size
- 12,950 m²
Status
- Competition entry
Lead
- Valerie Kerz
Team
- Daniele Colombati
- Ahmed Rihan
- Christian Tschersich
- Miriam Gruber
Partner
- Tobias Wallisser
What if a school’s architecture could empower a new generation of environmental stewards? Fusing optimal learning conditions with a vertical learning landscape embedded in nature, a low-carbon school in Berlin shows how design can make a positive impact beyond its footprint.
CULTIVATING ECO-CONSCIOUS MINDS
As cities expand in size and density, urban children become more disconnected from the natural rhythms of the planet—while high-rise apartments climb higher and land becomes more crowded, playgrounds and ecosystems continue to shrink. When understanding ecology may be crucial to future generations’ existence on Earth, this problem needs urgent attention. School design could play a crucial role in the solution, making space for vital physical and emotional connections to nature. Yet, the reality is that compact sites and low budgets often force standardized floor plans and concrete playgrounds.
“The idea was an inner city school that reconnects children to the rhythms and intelligence of nature, inspiring future stewardship while supporting urban biodiversity and reducing pollution.”
On a small urban plot in East Berlin surrounded by 1970s concrete high-rises, LAVA proves how an elementary school could layer architecture and landscaping as an educational-environmental hybrid that also improves urban life beyond its gates. Encouraging outdoor education, the architects surrounded the four-story, 60m long, low-carbon building for Campus Hedwig in a curving, biodiverse garden where children learn about permaculture, explore an organic barefoot parkour course, or discover a wild mini forest. Not only does nature find a new bastion in the city to propagate and procreate, but these experiences also infuse the curriculum with an intuitive understanding of ecosystems. The schoolyard serves as a connective bridge, allowing these vital lessons to extend into the community beyond.
HEALTHY DESIGN
To build further on this potential, the natural landscape doesn’t stop at the yard—considering the optimal conditions for quality learning, including daylight, diversity of experience, and access to outdoors as researched in previous projects such as LIFE Hamburg, LAVA permeated the south-facing façade with open-air diagonal circulation, water management, and planting, partially sheltered by the cantilevering roof to form a shady blended indoor-outdoor environment with a variety of functions and annual uses. “We envisioned integrating the garden into the school, creating a vertical learning landscape where the environment is present in every lesson and conversation, enriching the curriculum and enhancing daily wellbeing,” says LAVA Partner Tobias Wallisser.
"Our goal was to craft a healthy and diverse education environment that blends indoor and outdoor teaching to improve the wellbeing of children, teachers, and ecosystems.”
The health-centered functions that ground the design, from passive ventilation and cooling to biophilia, have proven benefits for education environments, effectively reducing illness through access to fresh air and clean indoor air quality, increasing cognitive function from concentration to productivity, and even improving teacher retention rates. Every classroom opens up to this predominantly glazed façade, so even in winter, children are connected to the environment through views and daylight, and every classroom has immediate access to an outdoor space that connects to the yard. This hybridized, quality experience continues across the plan, where wide corridors transcend circulation to become zones for activities and play. A meandering central rammed earth wall performs as a core, embedded with practical supplementary spaces for bathrooms, storage, and services.
“The timber and rammed earth school building is surrounded by a verdant yard, wrapped in an open-air staircase, and embedded with passive design and renewable energy methods.”
CARBON CONSCIOUS
Schools often have high energy and water demands, so ensuring the building did not contribute to further pollution in the urban community was a key design driver for LAVA’s architects. Carbon-neutral materials and techniques included the rammed earth, as investigated in depth within the German Pavilion design for Expo Osaka 2025, as well as timber structure and cladding. Both of these natural materials bind CO₂ during their lifetimes, decreasing the embodied carbon of the building, and importantly, are non-toxic, low VOC materials, containing fewer chemicals that could be harmful to children. In operation, the use of passive measures such as night cooling, natural ventilation, and insulation, including triple glazing and shading, reduces the energy requirement, while renewable energy generation through photovoltaics and efficient technology like heat pumps and heat recovery supply 50 percent of energy demand and create environmental comfort with the least amount of technology.
The design proposes how urban education environments can actively enhance a healthy, broader ecosystem in improving health for children, the environment and the community in a positive ripple effect. “For a long time, architecture has opposed nature,” says Wallisser. “However, this project brings architecture into a new era. We, as architects, now recognize the power of each decision to regenerate what was diminished in the past by cities. The design of this school opens up possibilities for social and environmental learning, benefiting children today and throughout their lives as they carry an understanding and stewardship of nature beyond the schoolyard.”
“By designing social and environmental functions that improve the positive impact of the school beyond its footprint, we maximize the contribution of this building to its urban community.”
