OMA

NEW SCHOOL CAMPUS . FRANKFURT

OMA . + spatium

The inner courtyard at Frankfurt School’s current site on Sonnemannstrasse is hugely important to campus life at the School; it is like a common room where everyone can meet and interact. we aim to celebrate this.

We divide the campus buildings into two clusters, each consisting of three high-rise office buildings. The two clusters are joined together by two horizontal buildings in which teaching take place.They are carefully arranged both to take full advantage of the natural light and to reflect the different ground-plan levels of the various buildings. The new campus supports a wide range of working, studying and teaching methods, and the horizontal arrangement of the teaching buildings provides a very wide range of organisational options. The two horizontal buildings are directly connected to each other by a central staircase that penetrates both of them, as well as a copper stair that winds through the inner courtyard between them.
The inner courtyard is both the intermediate void between the assembled campus components, and the heart of the entire campus. The rest of the campus, with all of its facilities and access routes, is grouped around this “school yard”. There are sightlines to the courtyard from the offices, seminar rooms, Mensa (students’ refectory), library and Learning Centre. Because the courtyard is a raised platform at the physical centre of the campus, it is also the centrepiece of the new design concept, offering panoramic views of the Frankfurt skyline and ample opportunity for relaxed, informal encounters between students, researchers, teachers and executives.

Location&Year: Frankfurt, German, 2013
Program: 39000m2 Campus building
Status: 3rd place of International Competition
Clients: Frankfurt School of Finance & Management
Credits: Inside Outside landscape by spatium , photography Frans Parthesius