The conversion of a school from the 1950s becomes a showcase project for modern school construction.

The new training centre integrates the existing school from the 1950s into a three-storey courtyard building. The timber frame structure with timber-clad exterior walls is built as a passive house.

The design for the extension of Altmünster Agricultural College is based on the regional typology of the Vierkanthof – a farm built around a central yard – and transforms the existing school from the 1950s into a three-storey courtyard building. Generous spaces create differentiated and transparent circulation zones. The open organisation of adjacent rooms allows targeted views through the building and into the landscape.

Highly-insulated timber-framed elements form the non-loadbearing outer skin of the skeleton structure. The roof is constructed with a single layer of beams, while the floor slabs consist of solid panels of stacked timber boards with a concrete topping. The building meets the requirements of ecologically sound and resource-friendly construction by extensively using local silver fir. The new training centre integrates the existing building – which is of little architectural significance – as a valuable ecological resource into a spatially convincing overall system.