Cafeteria at the Canton School Wettingen | :mlzd

In 2002, Swiss architectural :mlzd firm won the competition to design a new cafeteria for the school of the Canton Wettingen, Switzerland.

The cafeteria for the students was installed into an existing building called ‘Loewenscheune’ (lion’s barn).

The old cafeteria at the Canton school Wettingen was due to renovation. The old cafeteria of the Wettingen School was too small, due to constantly raising pupil number, so :mlzd projected the new cafeteria according to the typology of the existing buildings.

As new location for the cafeteria, the ‘Loewenscheune’ was chosen because it is located centrally between the monastery and the former spinning mill. The new cafeteria has a rural character and part of a the conceptual and formal analogy with the traditional farm, which makes the volume, types and structural features of the interior space.

The ‘Loewenscheune’ should be rebuilt and expanded with great respect for the historical substance.

The building envelope, composed of a homogeneous coverage of black anodized aluminum sheets, plays with the light that seeps between the silhouettes of the flowers and leafs cutout of the aluminum sheets.

Idea / Concept

The ‘Loewenscheune’ was, according to the typology of the existing line, extended northward on the scale of the new building’s volume which was measured by the existing surrounding buildings.

The ornamentation of the perforated metal panels, whose form refers to the rich world of shapes of the monastery, is in contrast to the abstraction of the volume.

Materialization

The architects reacted very respectful and sensitive to the classical ‘Loewenscheune’ with its spacious interior and magnificent roof truss.
The openings of the north-facing gable facade were largely left untouched and form the transition to the output layers in the new building in the future.
The volume of the interior is only divided horizontally.

Facade

The new curtain wall facade of stamped, anodized aluminum sheets forms one big connected surface through the roof and the windows thus supports the abstraction of the volume.

Using this formal reduction as well as by the dark facade surface, the new building steps back in contrast to the surrounding buildings.

Photos by Dominique Marc Wehrli

via ARCHICENTRAL