Primary School DeVogels
Oegstgeest, the Netherlands
Architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger

A Dutch legend in social design plays his hand at outfitting a small school and residential community

By David Cohn

© Duccio Malagamba

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

A disciple of Aldo van Eyck and pioneer of the Dutch Structuralist movement in the 1960s, Herman Hertzberger is back. In projects such as the 1966 Montessori School in Amsterdam, Hertzberger championed the use of design as a catalyst for social interaction. Although overshadowed in recent years by new generations of Dutch architects, Hertzberger, now 71, continues to direct a busy practice, updating his formal language while maintaining his experimental outlook. In an eight-classroom primary school for a small residential development in Oegstgeest, a town outside Leiden, in South Holland, he demonstrates that his techniques of social design are as pertinent as ever.

Hertzberger won the competition for the school and 32 adjacent row houses with his daring solution for a triangular site too small for the required program. In contrast to the dispersed developments of its surroundings, Hertzberger arranged the houses in a bowlike curve that defines a strong public space, like an English crescent. He placed the school at the spring point of the curve with views to all sides.

Defying conventional wisdom, Hertzberger raised the classrooms into the air. The strategy created views and outdoor play areas. The classrooms are raised 16 feet to span the gymnasium occupying part of the site.

The building is accessed by a staircase that begins as a wide podium under the classrooms and zigzags out to rise along the eastern facade.

Hertzberger organized the interiors to break down the rigidities of a conventional school plan. The classrooms open via wide sliding doors to alcoves that draw small group activities into the corridor "streets."

A "main square" in the form of an amphitheater steps down to a multipurpose room. Hertzberger notes that the variety and flexibility of spaces is particularly important for the different learning needs of the many foreign-born children in the school.

See the March 2003 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Primary School DeVogels

Location:
Oegstgeest, the Netherlands

Gross square footage:
11,200 sq ft

Client:
Municipality of Oegstgeest

Architect:
Architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger
www.hertzberger.nl