Frederiksberg Upper Secondary School

Educational

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The two top floors of the Frederiksberg Upper Secondary School are designed like a modern student environment with visual contact across halls and interior courtyard areas. The entrance hall, which opens up towards the new Falkoner Plaza, provides access to the student facilities on the two top floors of the building.

The facade of the school is 50 meters long and three floors high. Wide stairs from the main hall gives access to flex rooms and a gym on the ground floor and moreover wide stairs provide access to the upper floors that are bright and transparent.

Transparency and visual contact across study rooms and open spaces, courtyards and terraces are predominant in the design of the upper study environment. This area is organised around longitudinal and transversal corridors with integrated study and open spaces connected to courtyards and terraces. The various school subjects are arranged around transversal corridors via transverse passages and internal light steel staircases.

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Project facts

Location:	Frederiksberg, Copenhagen
Client:	City of Frederiksberg
Gross floor area:	10,400 m2
Year of construction:	2000 - 2004
Type of assignment:	First prize in invited competition, 2000
Collaborators:	NCC Construction and Moe & Brødsgaard

Sustainability

Frederiksberg Upper Secondary School has an integrated solar cell system of 3 kWp - designed to fit a 140 m2 large overhead light in the entrance hall. The system consists of 2240 100x100 blue poly-crystalline solar cells divided into 56 modules. Each solar cell provides approx. 1.35 W.

The solar cells are fixed in the insulating glass of the overhead light to visually create the illusion of screening tiles of the same rhythm and visual size. This way the solar cells reinforce the main organisation and the architectural idea of the building. Additionally, they create some very beautiful and effective light and shadow reflections on the walls and beams, visible to all students, teachers, visitors and citizens of the city. At night the overhead light and the solar cells are softly illuminated from within and are visible from the city's new plazas that surround the school - providing a dramatic and poetic effect.

Solfanger Frb.jpg

To further visualise the solar cell system a large display has been put up in the entrance hall, which is easily visible to everyone who visits the school. It displays the actual and overall electrical production. The production data from the inverter's data-log is accessible from the school's computer network. The data from the system is typically used in connection with the teaching of physics and natural science.

The school as a gathering point

Together with Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg Main Library, Frederiksberg Shopping Centre, Falkoner Centre and Frederiksberg Metro Station, Frederiksberg Upper Secondary School forms a new, dynamic gathering point in Frederiksberg. The school is part of the municipality's vision for the area around Frederiksberg Metro Station as a new centre and gathering point for retail, culture and education.

Henning Larsen Architects has designed the masterplan for the area and deliberately placed the main hall and canteen towards the surrounding urban space, where the open facades interplay with the surroundings and plazas. With its inner patios and courtyards the Frederiksberg Upper Secondary School retains Frederiksberg's local appearance with many green oases and gardens.

Besides the high school Henning Larsen Architects have designed the extension of Frederiksberg Main Library. The buildings are all part of the first prize proposal for developing Frederiksberg town centre.