PUBLIC BUILDINGS

Dear Readers,

if you think that we are only interested in ready-made interiors and trendy design fairs, you are wrong! While researching for our issue on the topic of public buildings, we visited a construction site in Hanover. There, interior works for the school “Schule auf der Bult” (top picture) are in their final stages. Architect Gesche Grabenhorst guided us through the largest state special school for emotional and social development in Lower Saxony and explained the design. However, the care and responsibility with which buildings for children have to be planned was already noticeable on the construction site. Public institutions in particular are supposed to implement what is the original responsibility of society: creating security, imparting know ledge, offering structures, promoting individuality, enabling community, practising tolerance, … Achieving this was a prerequisite for the selection of the projects we present from page 76 onwards. The Evangelical Church of Lower Saxony currently supports this special demand on youth rooms for its young parishioners. On the initiative of Pastor Mathis Burfien, the youth devotion award entitled „Dein Wort in Gottes Ohr“ (From Your Lips to God’s Ear) was recently announced. The jury selected the best four projects from 94 competition entries, and at the award ceremony in the Loccum Abbey in Lower Saxony, the prize-winners learned
that the regional church was donating a new youth room to their respective youth groups. The designs are the result of a semester project at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, where Prof. Gesche Grabenhorst teaches design. When the next jury meeting is due in June, we will know which concepts will actually be implemented.

Best Wishes
Petra Stephan, Dipl.-Ing.
Chief Editor
Architect