GRAMMAR SCHOOL, NÆRUM Painted board

marked interior
Arkitekter Dall & Lindhardtsen A/S panels

Location
Nærum is an upper-class residential district of Copenhagen affectionately known as the whisky belt, which
lies 15 km to the north of the city. By car, if you follow the highway from Copenhagen to Ellsinore, Nærum
is signposted along it. The school is not far from the highway turn-off. There is no direct bus or train service
from the city centre to Nærum, so you will have to change lines and bus routes to get there.

Architectural Statement
Copenhagen’s new high school in Nærum for 900 pupils was the result of a design competition in 2000.
The winning design compressed the school under one roof with the class rooms and study centres located
along the building perimeter and around a central covered courtyard. The courtyard which doubles as an
auditorium is visible and open to everyone in the building and there are flexible arrangements for group
meetings, formal school functions, musical concerts and plays in this space. On three sides the courtyard
is enclosed by the three-storey high school block. On the fourth, truncated side the courtyard faces the
glass-walled entrance of the building.
The study areas are located in the spaces that arise in the angles between the class room wings
and the glass curtain wall façade. The study rooms face the courtyard and receive daylight via skylights
in the roof over the courtyard. In addition each study area has its own winter garden along the periphery
of the building. The internal layout of the floor results in short connecting paths from the courtyard and
recreation zones to the study centres, the quiet teaching levels and classrooms, and the library above it.
It was important that the school also served the community needs outside teaching hours.
The large mono-pitch roof has a slope that follows the natural slope of the site. The sports hall is
a free-standing building to one side of the main block which runs parallel to the main street of Nærum
Hovegade.

Discussion
Kjeld K. Knudsen
It was difficult to find a site for the school because almost all the land in the district was developed. Any
open spaces were parkland and other coveted green areas. With the co-operation of the local community
the school was able to purchase a narrow strip of land occupied by a factory producing noise measurement
instruments and a small group of dwellings and workshops. Even though these buildings were demolished
there was never enough land for a playing field.
The design competition was run on EU lines with six architects invited to submit proposals. It was
a very detailed brief with input from the teaching staff on space requirements, classroom layout and
functionality. The winning design provided a building that had everything under one roof and some green
space externally. Transparency and openness was critical in the design, it was a quality that the teachers
most wanted for the new school.
The design allows to overview the whole school from any balcony
overlooking the courtyard space. We put the school under one roof within a simple
geometric form and a clearly understood internal layout. By compressing the
school into one building we made space for cars, bicycles, some recreation areas
and gardens on the site. Rising above the inner courtyard like a space pod, was Site layout

the library building. The curving glass walled library is not a large space nor is it
full of books; it is a work station for electronic communication and information
with desks, computers and screens.
There are effectively two buildings on the site, the school block being the
dominant one and the sports hall annexe which is alongside it. As you enter the
school building you are immediately inside the covered courtyard space which
rises 16m to the roof and is 50m in diameter. The classroom and study areas are
located on the perimeter or the boundary of the courtyard. The building footprint
is a square whose sides are 75m long, with one corner truncated to form the
entrance. The total floor area is 14,000m2 spread over three floors. On the ground
floor are the administration offices, the music, art and multi-media departments
which are more enclosed. On the first to third floor are the more open plan
teaching rooms, laboratories and study areas.
The two sets of splayed columns painted red and rising from the courtyard
support the principal roof beams that run down each side of the slotted glass
opening in the roof. The columns provide sufficient lateral stiffness to stabilise
the long beams. The suspended library floor is supported on two fat precast
columns painted blue. The columns are hollow and have been made squat to resist
sway from eccentric floor loading. The blue and the red splayed columns are
quite a vivid colour and a contrast with the neutral tones of the interior walls, the
ceiling and floors.
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 Section A-A
Section B-B

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 B

First floor plan

A A

The courtyard floor is covered in a particular grey African granite and on

it there is a mural designed by the artist Henning Damgaard-Sorensen. He chose
different granite colours and had tiles cut into three different divisions of the
square tile and then laid these in a precise geometric mosaic. The circular openings
in the roof are effectively light boxes which are quite randomly arranged. Some
observers may think that we have tried to depict a starry sky but that is not true,
the pattern was drawn and developed without reference to any constellations.
The idea was to avoid symmetry in the pattern which would then impose itself
on the central space.
We chose concrete for the internal exposed load-bearing walls and the
frame. On the internal precast wall the surface has been board-marked and the
colour is a light natural stone. We wanted concrete as it was a very hard-wearing,
durable material. The board marked panels were broken up into stone block sizes
by forming grooves on the panel surface. The spacing of the horizontal grooves
was in proportion to the storey height and building grid. In a way it echoes the
wood grain of the pine boards on the external elevation. We chose the concrete
colour based on research we carried out on the excellent concrete finish to Roskilde
Town Hall which was completed in the 1960s. In the end the concrete surface had
to be given a paint finish of silicate lasur much to our regret, because there were
some discolouration problems.
The external façade is a glass and aluminium curtain wall system with pine
wood laths inlaid above and below the window opening. The pine laths are framed
between horizontal bands of aluminium fins acting as canopies to prevent rainwater
from the glass soaking the timber. The wood façade is a very contemporary timber
design based on traditional Nordic custom. Its lightness and warmth were chosen
to harmonise with the residential buildings nearby and the pleasing environment
of the school. A concrete façade would have been too brutal and a glass façade
quite featureless. In recent years the Finnish timber industry has revived an old
Viking custom of preserving pine by heat treating it. If you heat pine to 263° C for
a set time the cells close up on the exterior to prevent the wood from ripening
and rotting. The Vikings built seaworthy boats that lasted a lifetime using this
method of timber preservation and waterproofing. To maintain the natural pine
colour we have had it oiled, otherwise the surface will slowly turn silver grey.
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Pine cladding to elevation

Mural design

Courtyard and raised library pod

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 The external glass is double-glazed with a coating to reduce UV penetration MIX CONSTITUENTS

and heat gain. There is trickle ventilation and climate control through the windows Board mark panels
down the central spine of the roof which can be opened or closed. Aalborg White: 360kg/m3
Eka sand (yellow): 900kg/m3
Beach gravel (size): 1,000kg/m3
Precast Construction Water/cement-ratio: 0.45
Pigment: 3% of cement weight
Han Stig Møller, Betonelement A/S
Workability: 100mm
We have a factory 30km from Copenhagen in Vibby, which means we are close
to the busiest construction market in Denmark. Most of the materials that were
used for precasting the panels at Nærum School were local except the sand which
was brought in from Jutland. We made only a few sample mixes before we
achieved the colour the architect was looking for. We were fortunate to have been
given the mix constituents for the concrete at Roskilde Town Hall.
The panels for the school internal walls were cast on tilting tables on a flat
bed. There were a few panels cast vertically higher up the building which did give
us a few problems with an exact colour match, because the pressure against the
formwork was so much greater.
All the materials were kept in enclosed silos and the concrete was batched
in 1m3 lots. The panels were cast under cover in the casting sheds and vibrating
tables were used to compact the concrete in the moulds. To make the board marks
we used a ply sheet onto which we pinned an elastomeric formliner. This material
was imprinted with a board mark pattern. To make the grooves steel strips were
fixed down over the formliner and screwed into the ply. Once the concrete was
compacted a machine power-floated the surface to level. The following day the
panels were tilted up hydraulically and then lifted out and placed in the back of
the shed where repairs to small chips are carried out before the panels are washed.
They are then taken to the storage yard where they await dispatch to the site.
The panels were generally 8m long and 3m high and 200mm thick and
weighed nearly 15 tonnes. Usually two panels of this size were taken by lorry to
site and placed directly into position. The panels are temporarily propped until
the upper precast floor planks were in place and stitched into the next lift of wall
panels.
In all there were around 500 units required for Nærum which cover a
surface area of 9,000m2. All of them were either different in size or configured
differently because of box outs, service openings, light switch positions and door
requirements which had to be formed precisely. We made 33 moulds and adjusted
them 300 times to achieve the final panel shape. It was not the most economic
way to cast precast elements but we had a decent sized order and the continuity
helped to keep costs down.
There were some problems with lime staining and efflorescence to the
finished board marked panels on site. They left the factory clear but later some
developed a white bloom on the surface which was difficult to remove. The
contractor tried different solutions to clean it off. Acid washing failed to remove
it, but as the board-marked panels had been nailed with galvanised pins a deposit
of zinc was left in the concrete which turned a rusty colour during the acid washing. Top: Wide steps double as a concert platform
Bottom: First floor terrace
Heat treatment to the rust marks was tried but that failed to remove them. Sand
blasting was considered but was not attempted as it would probably remove the
board marking as well as the lime bloom. Moreover light sand blasting could
also increase the size of the surface blow holes. In the end the contractor elected
to paint all the surfaces with a silicate mineral paint matched to the exact colour
of the precast panels. It also covered over some patches where the release agent
had formed pale brown stains on the surface. For this reason many contractors
in Denmark prefer to purchase grey precast panels and paint them to give a
uniform appearance. But this could result in a long-term maintenance issue.
The vertical panels in the gymnasium were precast with a grey concrete
finish and are of a very high quality. The panels were 3.8m high, 200mm thick
and 8m long. They were cast in rigid free-standing metal formwork moulds with
no tie bolts or corner restraints. Internal vibration was used to compact the P R O J E C T D AT A
concrete in the conventional way, which was normal procedure for a precast Client: Copenhagen County
factory in Denmark. Acid washing removed the surface imperfections and painting Architect: Dall & Lindhardtsen A/S
with mineral paint harmonised the surface colour. Main Contractor: NCC Denmark A/S
Structural Engineer: Jørgen Nielsen A/S
Precast Manufacturer: Betonelement A/S
Completion: 2004
Construction time: 15 months
Building footprint: 75m by 75m
Height: 16m
Total floor area: 14,000m2
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 Stairs to library pod

Looking down on the courtyard space

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