Teda High School in Tianjin, China by schneider+schumacher

Article source: schneider+schumacher

The new building for “Teda No. 1 Middle School” has been officially opened in 2017 – marking the first schneider+schumacher building ever to be completed in China. schneider+schumacher won the competition in 2012 with their proposal to replace the existing school building with a new building.
The site is centrally located in the city, in Tianjin’s ‘Teda Economic Development Zone’ located in the Binhai District. The current school has already established an excellent reputation, and accordingly it bears the name ‘Teda No. 1 School’.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

• Architects: schneider+schumacher
• Project: Teda High School
• Location: Tianjin, China
• Photography: arch-exist
• Client: City of Tianjin, TEDA Administrative Commission Infrastructure Center
• Gross floor area: 62,000 m²
• Design company: schneider+schumacher
• Lead architect: Michael Schumacher
• Design team: Edwin Heimberg, Peichen Pan, Elisabet Aguilar Palau, Xiuyuan Zhang, Luni Lu
• Collaborators: Tianjin Architecture Design Institute
• Project manager: Nan Wang, Joachim Wendt, Edwin Heimberg
• Procurement documentation: Competition

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

The design comprises a single five-storey building of about 63,000 square metres, with a 180-metre long hallway – the school’s ‘backbone’ – acting as a central element linking all the other key areas. Crucially, this backbone, aside from its role as circulation space, also offers a pleasant, informal area where students can meet and talk a feature that traditional Chinese schools normally lack.

On upper levels, linking bridges meander through the red walls of the staircase, alluding to ‘Liu Shang Qu Shui‘, a traditional Chinese story about the shared creation, exchange, and transmission of knowledge.The building comprises new classrooms for a total of 2,700 students, plus a library, an auditorium seating 600 people, and a sports hall.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

The brief called for two different approaches. The core concept was to replace just some of the existing buildings with new structures, and to revitalise the remaining buildings. In the other concept, the architects were asked to ignore the existing constraints and consider the consequences of erecting a totally new building. schneider+schumacher’s design concept unites both these approaches by creating a coherent programme for phasing the construction work. The idea won unanimous approval from both the jury and the local politicians and convinced them to rebuild not just a few of the buildings, but the entire school.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

“A school is not solely a place of learning but also a place of meeting and connecting. Therefor the design of Teda School tries to combine functional elements, like classrooms, through an open and modern 180-metre long hallway.Like a backbone this hallway links the different parts of the school’s body with each other, as well as giving students a space to interact.”

The school’s layout was messy and each functional area was isolated. Children had to walk a long way to reach the canteen, gymnasium and library, etc. Therefor the new design should use a different approach in integrating and connecting all those functional areas.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

The design comprises a single five-storey building of about 63,000 square metres, with a 180-metre long hallway – the school’s ‘backbone’ – acting as a central element linking all the other key areas. This backbone, aside from its role as circulation space, offers a pleasant, informal area where students will be able to
meet and talk. The long hallway links together classrooms for a total of 2,700 students, the school cafeteria, the library, an auditorium for 600 people, and the
sports hall, creating a shortcut between the different sections. In keeping with the surrounding urban texture, these elements are clearly expressed as individual
volumes.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

On the ground level the hallway runs through the schoolyard, creating a series of open and flexible public spaces. On upper levels, connecting bridges meander through the red walls of the staircase, alluding to ‘Liu Shang Qu Shui‘, a traditional Chinese story about the collective creation, exchange, and transmission of knowledge and creating an image of interwoven `braids´.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

The elevation’s strict vertical and horizontal glass elements and stone-cladding sets the school visually apart from more typical Chinese school buildings, and the design aims to safeguard the school’s excellent reputation as well as provide a stimulating learning environment for students and teachers.For the areas of the classroom-building, where lighting is important, the design uses vertical stone strips; for the art-building that has strict requirements for the lighting, it
uses horizontal stone strips.

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © arch-exist

Image Courtesy © schneider+schumacher

Image Courtesy © schneider+schumacher

Image Courtesy © schneider+schumacher

Image Courtesy © schneider+schumacher

Tags: China, Tianjin

Categories: Building, School

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