Educational: The Latest Architecture and News

The proposal for the New Building for the Nantes’ Conservatory & the Pole of Higher Learning Performing Arts by RAUM + l’Escaut proposes to open the different practices to the city. Dance studios and music classrooms create a perception of artistic practices from the outside and make it readable within this new cultural center of the Nantes Island. Beyond the shared nature of the equipment, transdisciplinary practices will be offered by a set of situations that offer the linking of different disciplines and will thus create a direct link between the building and operation of contemporary pedagogies relating to higher education. More images and architects’ description after the break.

The challenge in the competition for the Amstetten School Campus was to combine two existing secondary schools in one location and complement the program with a new music school and an additional gym. With the area being characterized by an extreme heterogeneous development, with a wide range of buildings with various functions and styles, the design by Atelier Thomas Pucher, which won the first prize, is comprised of a compact five-storey cube which rises in the surroundings as a distinctive landmark. Additionally, the building is combined with two lower volumes and three courtyards, within a chessboard formation. More images and architects’ description after the break.

LETH & GORI was recently awarded the third prize in the open international competition with their proposal for an extension to Music Gymnasium Salzburg. Their design creates a new extension to the school without stealing space or light from the existing densely built site which is done by digging out the northern part of the site and inserting the extension as a one storey building with courtyards and skylights. Furthermore, the roof of the building becomes a new playful urban landscape for the students. More images and architects’ description after the break.