Apollo at Friesenberg
Choosing the Roman god of light, prophecy and arts as the patron saint for the design of the new Borrweg school complex in Zurich-Friesenberg proved to be a good omen. With the submission “Apollo”, the team WALDRAP and atelier tp – tijssen preller landschaftsarchitekten won the 1st prize in the architectural competition. The involved structural engineers from Lüchinger+Meyer are very pleased with this success.
The foreseeable population growth in the Friesenberg area as a result of the extensive expansion of cooperative residential building offers will also result in an increase of the number of school-age children. With the new construction of the Borrweg school complex, which will offer space for 18 primary school classes and will as well include a double sports hall, a swimming facility, a canteen and childcare facilities, the city of Zurich is reacting to this development in a forward-looking manner.
The winning project “Apollo” complements the inventoried existing facility with a compact five-story building as a new identification point in the neighbourhood. The sports hall and the swimming facility, which can also be used by the neighbourhood outside the teaching time, are located underneath the schoolyard. City Councillor André Odermatt praises the design as “a sustainable and future-oriented school facility, which also benefits the neighbourhood with its diverse open spaces”.
The building structure consists of a reinforced concrete frame structure, in which the spans are adequately adapted to the expected use. The central zone on the ground floor is supported by a girder grid in the area of the cafeteria and the multi-purpose space, thus enabling a column-free spanning and, in consequence, maximum flexibility. The steel structure of the Brise Soleils is curtain-type suspended. The sports hall and the swimming facility are spanned by prefabricated girders. The underground volumes are optimally positioned regarding the slope.
Assuming an approval by the Zurich electorate, the 60 million francs facility should be ready for occupation by 2025.
The exhibition of all competition designs is open to the public from the 8th of January to the 19th of January 2020 (4 p.m.-8 p.m.; exhibition room Werd, Morgartenstrasse 40, Zurich).
