The positioning of the new school building creates a spacious schoolyard that is enclosed on all sides, creating a safe haven for school children to enjoy. Large green recesses and smaller planting islands create different spaces with divergent qualities and forms of use. Interactive elements, such as the mobile modular seating, allow pupils to use their schoolyard individually and adapt it to their needs.

The pervious concrete paving system specially developed here enables partial unsealing and thus natural seepage despite high usage pressure. The green joints between pavers with spontaneous vegetation visualizes traces of use. The image of the courtyard thus changes not only with the seasons, but also with the intensity of use by the pupils. The concrete paving system functions like a pixel image with different color tones ranging from grey to green. The parametric pattern reacts situationally to the type of use and intensity of use, with both nonporous and porous stones. The result is a carpet of interactive and thus evolving pattern, stretching from façade to façade.

Project Data

Landscape Architect: Bryum

Other designers involved in the design of landscape: Stücheli Architekten AG, Zürich

Project location: Schwarzwaldallee, Basel, Switzerland

Design and Execution year: 2012-2016