Form follows tales

Who is the real client of a public building? The civic institution behind its construction, or its future users? Should those users be given a voice in the design process? These are the questions architect Susanne Hofmann and her group Die Baupiloten have always sought to answer when designing buildings such as nursery and primary schools, playgrounds and university structures. Often constructed in problematical urban areas and with small budgets, their buildings stand out from the crowd for their magical atmosphere. For what was probably their most intense project, the Erika Mann primary school in Berlin (see Domus no. 916, 2008), they developed the design as if it were a sort of story animated by the presence of a silver dragon and many of the formal decisions were taken jointly with the pupils. In a design process based on shared involvement, the boundary between architect and user becomes fainter and Susanne Hofmann learns something new every time. Domus talked to the German architect following her latest design in Leipzig, the Lichtenbergweg kindergarten.

Laura Bossi: Recently completed in Leipzig, the Lichtenbergweg kindergarten was designed through a shared process, in which the children attending the school suggested ideas, forms and colours. You have often adopted this approach in the past. How does it normally work?   Susanne Hofmann: With this project we moved quite a bit forward regarding the research of participatory design. This was the first project that we only worked on as an office, since the client did not believe in the advantage to involve students — despite the experience of Die Baupiloten. Some of the decision makers were also quite doubtful about the advantage of involving the kids into the design process.

We managed to devise an effective but creative way to integrate the kids' desires and needs. New was also that we devised a planning game for the decision makers — the city of Leipzig, the youth welfare office, the kindergarten’s operator, head and teacher — to set the common ground. We conducted the game one long afternoon and managed to establish priorities between the participants regarding pedagogical, programmatic and building requirements but also their ideas of spatial atmospheric qualities.

What “people” know about the demands and desires they have for the use and experience of spaces is a potential social resource, which must be taken into account by architecture if a stronger identification of the users with their buildings is to be achieved. This in turn supports social acceptance of the architectural design. We can draw conclusions from our various projects: communication about the sensory experience is crucial for the interaction between architects and users. It is based on their mutual knowledge of the atmospheric spatial effect. With different ages, and coming from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, we develop individual models of participation. Their essential components are concepts and artistic stimuli.

How do you get in touch with your potential clients? Do the public institutions look for you or do you look for them? Do you also take part to architectural competitions?   Public institutions occasionally get in contact with us. Then we are confronted with a challenging configuration of client and users who very often have different priorities about their future building environment. Usually, we take part in competitions only when we are invited. As competitions work today, they contradict our design methodology, i.e. developing architecture from the users’ needs and desires. When we enter competitions, we try to offer spaces of possibility, which could later be negotiated with and appropriated by the users. The way competitions are conducted today should be really reconsidered regarding the potential participation could offer.

A thread running through the design of the Erika Mann primary school was a story developed in collaboration with the children and centred on a mythological silver dragon. The reference character in the Taka Tuka Land kindergarten was Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstockings. What was the reference in the Leipzig kindergarten?   For the school in Leipzig, we observed that the kids were interested in experiments and weather phenomena. The kids showed us drawings they had made of nature and weather. Their favourites were of rainbow gardens and volcanic landscapes which we decided to take as an inspiration. We asked them to build models from diverse material of the kindergarten's sumptuous material boxes. The models should show us their desired worlds inspired from their paintings. After the model-making, the kids told us vividly about their worlds. The identified atmospheric and spatial qualities triggered the design. Afterwards we organised two further meetings where the kids gave us their feedback, which we considered in the further planning process. Our slogan: form follows kids’ tales. The tale corresponds to the architectural concept of the design. At the same time, we, as architects, integrated the outcome of the planning game and any other requirements of a planning process.

The building was constructed around existing trees, resulting in two courtyards. How did you make the children understand the need to respect the trees?   The main incentive working with the kids is to find out about their needs and desires. Through models, photomontages, and stories we communicate with the kids about the spatial and atmospheric qualities of their environment. We do not discuss concrete problems with them, we are interested in their imagination and concerns about their surroundings. At the same time we had the chance to spend time with the children on the site, and noticed them enjoyed particularly a beautiful group of trees at the edge of the site. Discussing with the pedagogues design alternatives regarding the programme, they enjoyed the possibility of having an additional protected small courtyard there. The building moving through the trees also derived from the general wish of keeping with the site’s “park” character.

The façade of the kindergarten plays with colours and materials, wood and mirrored surfaces, in order to resonate with the surrounding trees. The windows can be easily used by children as seating. It is a building made for stimulating curiosity. Can you tell me more about its design?   Curiosity is not our paramount concern. I can imagine that the building might stimulate curiosity simply because it is not determined by conventional architectural categories of how a kindergarten should look like, but follows the abstract concept of “rainbow gardens” and “volcanic landscapes” which we had developed from the atmospheric and spatial qualities of the kids’ worlds and stories. The windows are designed to match the scale of children, offering views of the internal spaces through to the outside, and therefore establishing a relation with the surrounding trees. Some of the skylights are designed to refract the rays of the sun, creating an interesting play of changing light inside the building. This idea has been developed further using pivoting reflective sun louvers that encourage the children to explore and experiment with different lighting effects. On the upper floors, the windows provide close views directly into the treetops. The colours are chosen and composed to generate an atmosphere of comfort and protection, but also encouraging exploration.

Susanne Hofmann Architects BDA: Lichtenbergweg Kindergarten
Design Team: Susanne Hofmann, Marlen Weiser (project management), Susanne Vitt (project management), Stefan Haas, Daniel Hülseweg, Martin Janekovic, Jannes Wurps, Oliver Henschel, Thomas Pohl, Marco Grimm, Falko Dutschmann
Client: Stadt Leipzig Hochbauamt
Kindergarten manager: DRK Akademischer Kreisverband Leipzig e.V.
Budget/Area: 1,700,000 €/ 972 m²
Completion: Summer 2012
Consultants: ICL Ingenieur Consult A. Kolbmüller GmbH, Einenkel Landschaftsarchitektur, Jörg Lammers, BJP Ingenieure GmbH