Addition to the primary and nursery school in Studenec

The school building is, for the community of people, which, among other things, is connected by the place where they live, always an important building. After all, in it, we pass on to our children, our successors, the knowledge and skills that were given to us by our parents and which we have managed to acquire during our lives through our experiences. Children become students at school so that after finishing, they can become adults. Adults who may be similar to us in some ways and in some ways will be completely different. Therefore, we should design the school building in such a way that they look forward to becoming adults, so they can say that if adults were able to build them such a school, then they can indeed achieve something, and perhaps it is worth asking them some things.

The extension of the Primary and Kindergarten School in Studenec is located within a larger complex of sports and educational facilities in the center of the village of Studenec and Zálesní Lhota. With its northern façade, it, together with the existing buildings, forms a sort of semi-enclosed courtyard, while its southern façade delineates the space in front of the Amphitheater, an outdoor stage that the community and the school use for various social events. The western façade faces the steep slope above the Oleška river, and given that it is the most visually least pronounced façade of the building, it is designed to fully support the best views of the undulating landscape of the Podkrkonoší, which are precisely in that direction. The eastern façade is connected by a bridge to the existing building of the Primary and Kindergarten School in Studenec, whose oldest part is the debut work of Karel Hubáček.

The design seeks to incorporate a rich illumination of the corridors and classrooms, which is meant to give students the feeling that even though they are at school, they do not need to feel unfree or cramped but that they are still a part of the environment that they can look out at in all directions. The building is designed to be as functional, economical and clear as possible, especially in terms of space utilization, layout, and internal organization. The goal was for the building itself to be an educational experience for children to some extent. The richly glazed window surfaces are complemented by prefabricated elements of colored concrete, which refers to the local red sandstone, and violet-gray plaster, which evokes the colors of melaphyre. Both of these rocks also make up the building's foundation. The interior environment in the common spaces is austere, with surfaces made of exposed concrete, thus not hiding the bearing material behind surface finishes, and partially also acknowledging some technical elements of the building's environment. Conversely, the interior environment in the classrooms is focused on creating as friendly an environment for teaching as possible, whether in terms of lighting, acoustics, or comfort. This is primarily achieved through wooden paneling. Wood previously covered the walls not only of schools in the region under the mountains, and so we build on this fact in the new design. The main classroom, located on the highest floor towards the western views, also adds a generous space with extraordinary acoustic solutions, so that it can be used for cultural and other events like a school social hall. The perforated wooden ceiling and variably shaped wall finishes, whose shapes are subject to spatial acoustics, contribute, together with the glazing reaching the full height of the room, to the uniqueness of this classroom.

The design's intention was to provide one of the largest schools in the area with a contemporary building that honors the place and thus provides children with a friendly environment on their path to education.

Technical Solution
The building is designed to be as functional, economical, and clear as possible, not only in terms of space utilization, layout, and internal organization but also regarding resource intensity.

It is carefully zoned, placing spaces with the least energy demands in locations where greater heat losses can be expected, while those with no requirements for natural light and which are not frequented are placed in the basement. In winter, the classrooms especially benefit from solar thermal gains due to their orientation towards the cardinal directions.

The entire building is then centrally forced ventilated with heat recovery, with the external environment quality being automatically controlled and monitoring not only the internal temperature but also the air quality and the amount of harmful substances in the classrooms. In summer, it allows for cooling through central ventilation, but it mostly relies on external shading and suitably designed glazing properties. During the hottest months of the year, the school is not regularly used due to the summer holidays, reducing the necessity for cooling even further.

Sufficient daylight reduces the need for long-term artificial lighting, and carefully chosen acoustically absorbent materials ensure exceptionally friendly spatial acoustics in the classrooms. This is particularly true in the main classroom, which also serves for social events, such as theater, concerts, lectures, etc.

Technically, the building is designed to ensure the most suitable conditions for its proposed purpose, namely education, while using the least amount of resources, whether concerning acquisition or operating costs.