The project is part of a logic that considers the site beyond the parcel limits of the intervention. Its unified volumetry and architectural language give the building the role of a central pivot, at the articulation of a neighbourhood in an urban fabric marked by its heterogeneity.

The siting of the building is dictated by continuity with the existing and future urban alignment, since the main façade on Hans-Beimler Street extends the building frontage of the existing and planned neighbouring buildings. The project is developed exclusively in the south-western part of the plot, in order to free the rest of the site from any construction. The compact and unitary volumetry of the building tends to reinforce the street boundary of the school's right of way, in order to preserve a protected but visible green heart, in continuity with the surrounding garden fabric. Thus, the volumetry defines a clear but porous boundary between the public space of the city and the more intimate outdoor space of the school.

The compactness and linearity of the building are sequenced in height by roofs at different altitudes, and in thickness by large green courtyards. This work allows a unitary reading of the building, while retranscribing its interior programmatic distribution by its epannelage. The generous courtyards punctuating the building provide it with great interior spatial qualities, naturally illuminating both its work spaces and its circulation areas. These large courtyards contribute to the language of limits and filters from which the project is written. From these vegetal interiorities, physical boundaries are created, but porous visual filters, between the programmatic entities that are articulated around them.

This expression of the limit and filter is found in the architectural language of the entire building. The desire not to consider the school as a hermetic and closed universe but open to the city and, in different temporalities, to people outside it, is materialised by the creation of a large glazed porch, the counterpart of which can be found on the courtyard side. These porches make the built façade porous, initiate the entrance to the building, and finally open onto the school foyer, a large, luminous and central space, at the intersection of all the programmes. The large glazed surfaces open up the school to its environment and show the interior programmes that animate it, while the awnings on the south-west façade, the curtains on the whole building, and the vegetal filter constituted by the existing trees modulate this porosity.

The ground floor houses all of the common programmes that are potentially open to the city: library, workshops, daycare, music room, canteen, multi-purpose room and gymnasium. Both directly accessible from the foyer and oriented along the main façade, their position allows for secondary access outside of school hours.

On the upper floors, the simplicity of the cluster plan repeated identically on two levels allows for a clear and functional organisation of the school. A common central forum forms the heart of each cluster. A multi-threshold space onto which all the classrooms and group work rooms open, it encourages exchanges between students and with the teaching staff. Double oriented, it benefits from the great luminosity provided by the patio, and from a terrace facing the playground.

The regular structural framework of the building offers great flexibility in the interior uses of the school and in its potential future transformations.

Client : LESG (Gesellschaft der Stadt Leipzig zur Erschließung, Entwicklung und Sanierung von Baugebieten mbH) / Budget: 21.5M€ excl. tax / Surface: 9 000 m² / Schedule: 2022-2026 / Team: LAN (lead architect), Irlenbusch von Hantelmann (associate architect), IGS Ingenieure et Finck Billen Ingenieure (structure), Alkewitz Landschaftsarchitekten (landscape), Sehlhoff et Iproplan (M.E.P), Graner Ingenieure (thermics et acoustics), Brandschutzbüro Dr.-Ing. Rönn (fire safety)