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Organic forms and user involvement make Peter Hubner's new school in Cologne a socially and environmentally responsive haven for learning.
Peter Hubner's architecture is most obviously green in its grass-roofs, untreated timber, and passive solar heating (AR July 1998), but it is also green at a deeper level in terms of social and psychological engagement. The recently completed Waldorf school at Cologne was planned around Rudolf Steiner's holistic philosophy: anthroposophy. This is reflected not only in the kinds of rooms and general spatial layout, but in the demonstration of how the building interacts with the elements, and the inclusion in fitting-out of craftwork by staff and pupils.
Hubner's first job for the anthroposophists was the Morgenstern School, Reutlingen (AR March 1987). Short of money, they approached him for his known skill with low budgets and recycled materials, but they soon found an architect sympathetic to their beliefs and ready to work open-mindedly with them, accepting for example Steiner's ideas about symbolism and colour. The Morgenstern's success led to an invitation to undertake the larger school at Cologne.
The project grew, with Hubner spending about two days per month in Cologne over the four years of the design and build process. He claims that the initial design sessions were the most critical, for a strong idea had to be found on which the attention of the group could be concentrated, an idea to focus enthusiasm and transmit it to others. In this case it was the notion of a centrally-planned main building drawn emblematically as a rose with five petals. This image combined the social centrality of the meeting hall, the beauty of a natural symbol and the significance of the numerical progression 5/10/20 which is at once the growth principle of the rose and the generative geometry of the building.
Waldorf schools exist across Germany, privately run but with state subsidy for some pupils. Although the children take the usual state exams, some like the Morgenstern even dedicating themselves to reversing failures from the state system, the educational goal remains much broader. The anthroposophists try to bring out the whole individual in an integrated way, physically, mentally and ethically, following a path of development advocated by Steiner. The curriculum therefore includes strong elements of...