Liabø School

Location: Liabø, Norway
Client: Municipality of Halsa
Team: Helene Koch, Sabine Kjærulff, Laura Myllyluoma
Collaborators: Pir II Architect Office AS
Design phase: 2009
Area: 2 ha.

The courtyard at Liabø School will become both a vivid school area and a locality displaying athletic activity, with learning and sports as the overall theme, for both the children of the school as well as for the citizens.

Courtyards of schools have great impact on the development of children, of their wellbeing, learning and social relations.

In Liabø School the children are being motivated directly from the many stories, which are formed by the scientific stories of the universe and the earth, where the northern sky and its star signs are printed with colored thermoplast on the dark asphalt surface in the center of the schoolyard.

Animal tracks are also printed as small paths through the yard, and islands of high grass create room for finding your very own niche, and feel the weather and the change of nature.

Between the school and the city lies an already existing beautiful wood of mixed leafage and pine trees.

The future school of Liabø contains the classic schoolyard; here the children have a close area they feel connected to, an area where they can play safely. The schoolyard is embraced by a green fillet, which functions as a large lawn, in wich zones for play and sports are an integrated part of the fillet.

The green fillet outlines the sports and athletic functions, and at the same time becomes an area of which the very small schoolchildren can use to recognize and navigate from.

When the children are out to play in the schoolyard, they become aware of the strong and characteristic mountain scenery, that appears in the horizon.

The meeting between the city and the school, between the new and the old, will have a clear synergy effect: an areal full of life.