WOOD MEETS CONCRETE, WARM MEETS COOL Anna Mahnke Natural park centre, elementary school, and kindergarten in St. Magdalena Planning to Realization 2006-2009 building type: educational and research construction, cultural construction, kindergarten, school, Visitors Centre support structure construction: solid construction facade construction: façade roof construction: support structure material: reinforced concrete, in-situ concrete facade material: concrete, wood, in-situ concrete, reinforced concrete, fair-faced concrete, natural wood roof material: concrete, reinforced concrete interior work material: concrete, fairfaced concrete, wood, natural wood Bordering the natural park Puez-Geisler in South Tyrol with its striking, jagged mountain ridges, the little hamlet of St. Magdalena comprises a dispersed settlement at the top of the Villnöß valley. On the location of a 1980s-era school building, planning called for both a new elementary school with kindergarten and a visitor centre for the national park. The architects designed two monolithic volumes with rock-like appearance and placed them within the impressive alpine landscape. Their tinted and manually treated exposed concrete surfaces correspond to the surrounding rocky ridges. With their precisely set openings framed by larch wood, they actually seem to be cut from stone. The two building volumes are juxtaposed at an angle and incorporate the ridgelines of the surrounding grassy hills in their design, as well as the course of the adjacent stream. At the same time, an open place between them unfolds and, thus, emphasizes the public character of the building ensemble. The parking lot of the natural park centre provides visitors with information on the natural park. From the interior, three differently oriented panorama windows offer dramatic views of the surrounding landscape.
Architects: STEFAN BURGER AND BIRGIT RUDACS Firm: Burger Rudacs Architekten Munich, Germany http://www.burger-rudacs.de Projects: John Cranko School in Stuttgart Institute building TU Chemnitz Visitor center Puez Geisler and primary school Funes Footbridge Funes Laboratory building HTW Dresden Competition Entries: City Hall Cham Nano Institute LMU Munich Library Ohm Hochschule Nürnberg Mensa TUM Garching School Munich North Media Centre Vienna FOS BOS North Haide Munich Country house Bolzano AdBK Nuremberg NS Documentation Centre Munich Citizens and cultural Altötting Multi-purpose hall Au ULB Darmstadt Country music Home Stainz University of Brixen Awards Architekturpreis der Stadt Oderzo, 2010, Anerkennung Architekturpreis Dedalo Minosse, 2011, special prize best architects 13 Exhibitions Werdende Wahrzeichen, Kunst Meran 02 2007 Neue Architektur in Südtirol 2006-2012, Kunst Meran 02 2012 New Architecture in South Tyrol 2006-2012, Spatio FMG per l Architettura Milano 05 2012 Many of Burger and Rudacs projects and competition entries involve municipal or educational facilities. manually treated concrete, in efforts to react to the contextual colors and materials of the surrounding site, whether in the urban settings of Munich and Stuttgart or the rural mountainous regions of St. process for much or Burger and Rudacs work.
CONSTRUCTION DETAILS TURNING A CORNER (Horizantal section) The corner is diffused by the change from concrete to Larch wood pannels, as well as the angled inset toward the window opening. WALL MEETS GROUND In this detail, the hard ground is met by the thick wall of cool, hard concrete. This relationship exsists throughout the building, except at openings or places of entry, where warm wood invites entrance.
WALL MEETS FLOOR window walls are framed and set between wood panneling that rests atop thick, well-insulated sheltered from noise below. The wood framing the window wall is both on the interior and exterior. WALL MEETS SKY The concrete exterior walls are meant to be read as facets of a monolithic whole, where the openings adornded in warm larch wood are made to look as if they are carved away to a living material. Similarly, a green roof sits atop the monolithic shape, almost like natural moss.
OPENING (Horizantal section) The depth of the inset for the windows further establishes the idea of carving away the monolithic rock of the cold exterior to warm, vibrant interior of the school and visitor center. At each of the openings in the exterior, larch wood panneling acts as structure, but since the wood material carries in from the exterior to the interior, it feels as if the interior of the building (depending on its programmed area) has morphed or changed material structure entirely. The warm interior classroom spaces reach through the openings of the rock exterior. Works Cited - "Burger Rudacs Architekten." Burger Rudacs Architekten. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. <http://www.burger-rudacs.de/index.php>. - "Natural Park Centre, Elementary School, and Kindergarten in St. Magdalena DETAIL Inspiration." Natural Park Centre, Elementary School, and Kindergarten in St. Magdalena DETAIL Inspiration. Detail-online, n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2013. <http://detail-online.com/inspiration/natural-park-centre-elementary-school-and-kindergarten-in-stmagdalena-107214.html>. - "Natural Park Centre, Elementary School, and Kindergarten in St. Magdalena." Detail Magazine Jan. 2012: 33-37. Print.