School of Forestry in Lyss, Switzerland

This school with boarding accommodation for future foresters forms the first phase of a more comprehensive development. The elongated teaching block and the four lateral tracts, providing accommodation for 100 students, are grouped together on a 160-metre-long concrete plinth structure that contains garages, workshops and ancillary spaces, communal areas and lecturers’ accommodation. The main hall and the administrative rooms are housed on the transparent ground floor of the school tract. The teaching areas are on the upper floors. These are screened against solar glare and overheating by a layer of louvres, which also protect the untreated timber façade against weathering. The louvres, which are conceived as easily replaceable elements, consist of obscured glass over the windows and larch slats over the apron walls. The structure of the school building is entirely of timber. The skeleton frame, which consists of silver fir boles set out to a 6 x 10 m grid together with lateral double main beams and secondary beams, supports a floor construction of round timbers and sandwich slabs. The smaller spans of the student housing tracts enabled the structure to be designed as a prefabricated frame. The limited space is extended by suspended balconies and gal- leries that also serve as access and escape routes. On the east faces of the buildings, these are glazed as a protection against the weather. The entire complex is linked together by a covered walkway.