Frederiksbjerg School wins Green Good Design Award
Aarhus’ Frederiksbjerg School has been named a recipient of the Green Good Design Award, one of 27 international projects recognized in the architecture category. The annual award, given by the Chicago Athenaeum of Architecture, recognizes projects that demonstrate innovative approaches to sustainability and wellness in design.
Completed in 2016, the Frederiksbjerg School was the first in Denmark to take into account new Danish reforms regarding activity in education. The laws require a minimum of 45 minutes of activity throughout the school day – a minimum easily achieved across the school’s classrooms, rooftop playing fields, terraces, stairs, sloped climbing wall, and open halls. The 900 students are encouraged to climb, jump, crawl and explore to their hearts content, with graphic elements and installations encouraging even the most timid learners to take part.
The school’s active learning concept is not limited to the students. The public is welcome to make use of the exterior facilities 24 hours a day, from the ground level climbing frames to the rooftop basketball courts.
The school also boasts strong environmental credentials. The exterior façades are constructed of recycled brick from a former local hospital, reducing construction waste and giving the still-new building a lived in feeling. Large recessed windows provide both an extra space to study and flood the interiors with daylight.
The Frederiksbjerg School was designed in collaboration with GPP Architects, Møller & Grønborg, Niras, and Hoffmann. Since its completion in 2016, the building has been shortlisted and awarded numerous prizes for design excellence, including the Danish Design Award.
About the Green Good Design Award
Green Good Design's goal is to bestow international recognition to those outstanding individuals, companies, organizations, governments, and institutions - together with their products, services, programs, ideas, and concepts-that have forwarded exceptional thinking and inspired greater progress toward a more healthier and more sustainable universe. The Green GOOD Design awards are considered an international citation of excellence in sustainability and green design by architects and companies alike.
