An educational landscape in Holland
A new school design for the Dutch city of Appingedam, created by Felixx Landscape Architects and Planners, demonstrates a campus functioning as an educational landscape.
Eemsdelta Campus will cater to 1,700 students, consisting of a single facility made up of buildings totalling 16,600 square-metres, and a surrounding outdoor space of 3.5 hectares. The buildings, say Felixx, “form an integral learning landscape that meets the educational needs of all schools and ensures a natural interaction with the environment.”
The ‘educational landscape’ in the Dutch city of Appingedam.
The campus’ layout was inspired by historical wierden, artificial dwelling mounds found in rural Groningen, with each school getting its own ‘house’ unique in appearance and organisation, thereby forming wierde-villages.
These buildings all sit around a central heart featuring a hub, main entrance and area for shared activities. The surrounding landscape flows between the buildings and, “turns the Eemsdelta College into a transparent and inviting complex.”
The campus layout was inspired by historical artificial dwelling mounds.
Three different landscape-themed rooms connect study areas through their thematic design.
While the rooms encourage active use, they are also spaces for relaxing, and all include sculptural objects- a greenhouse in the nursery, toolshed in the square, observatory in the biology garden, and boulder wall and multi-court alongside the beach.
The outdoor rooms encourage active use.
Eemsdelta Campus Garden Nursery on its northern side is enclosed by a hedge, and features an outdoor terrace and central greenhouse.
Its’ vast range of trees and plants can be used for classes in landscape maintenance, and fresh vegetables are grown and harvested for the on-site restaurant.
Seed beds are arranged in a grid structure, and a flower and herb garden allows students to learn species identification.
The plan includes areas for landscape classes.
On the southern side, which connects to the Damsterdiep, a canal between the cities of Groningen and Delfzijl, is a Sports Area.
A range of facilities and meeting spaces sit around a central pond, such as a multi-court, panna cage, and beach with volleyball courts.
It also features the start of the Daily Mile, a 1.6 kilometre running track sitting along the grandstand on the south side of the sports building.
The sports area on the southern side of the campus.
The Workshop Square is a space used to work on cars, and for students to learn construction paving.
Graphic lines in the concrete demarcate safety zones, and green islands with trees and flower-filled grass show the route along the square.
The Workshop Square.
In the Nature Reserve, an existing water feature will receive more water buffering capacity, with ecological embankments and grass. The water is visible from multiple locations, and may be used for researching and testing underwater life.
The landscape around the pond is designed as a park, with spaces for outdoor classrooms, an amphitheatre, and seating in a Tiny Forest that simulates the actual conditions of a forest, allowing it to be studied.
Eemsdelta Campus will function as an activator in the region, providing sports and cultural facilities and supplying energy.
The landscape park will program the rural corridor between Appingedam and Delfzijl with a green learning environment, and the buildings, “form an integral learning landscape that meets the educational needs of all schools and ensures a natural interaction with the environment.”