GAMMEL HELLERUP SECONDARY SCHOOL / Placed at the centre of the school, the curved roof of the hall turned into a social gathering space. It provides seating for social interaction and small group learning.
Longitudinal and cross section. The sports hall was placed below grade to avoid overshadowing the surrounding buildings, as well as to create a strong core for the school.
chitects have responded to the brief to provide a new indoor sports area by placing the hall in the centre of the school courtyard.8 BIG’s rationale for this move of putting the sports hall at the heart of the school was to avoid dispersing the campus further. Rather than losing the courtyard as a recreational and social space, the hall is set 5m down into the ground and accessed via subterranean connections from the existing school buildings. The roof to the hall is then used to create a gathering
space that supports social and outdoor learning opportunities. A sliver of glazing runs around the perimeter of the roof, connecting inside and outside spaces as well as providing natural light to the underground space. The edge of the roof doubles as a seat around the perimeter of the hall before bulging out of the ground to form an altered topography in the middle of the school campus. The dome of the roof responds to the parabola of an item thrown inside the hall. Externally the roof is clad in timber
LEARNING OUTSIDE: USING THE SCHOOL LANDSCAPE 167