Redesign of the Phönix elementary school playground in Berlin

The year is 2006 – the strong population growth that Berlin will experience in the coming years is not yet an issue. In Wartenberg, a district of the Berlin borough of Lichtenberg, the elementary school at Wartiner Straße 6 is closed: Few children were born in the area in previous years. The school building and gymnasium are closed, the grounds fall into a deep sleep and nature reclaims large parts of the site.

Ten years later, in 2016, the elementary school in the area in particular are bursting at the seams. Many new apartments and detached houses are being built in the Lichtenberg district and pupil numbers are rising rapidly. The district decides to reactivate the former school site and open a two-and-a-half-form entry elementary school with open all-day operation. In the future, 320 children between the ages of six and twelve with their teachers and educators will fill the site with life again.

The school building, which was built in prefabricated concrete slab construction during the GDR era, and the sports hall are still in good condition despite having been empty for years and are to be renovated and supplemented with a canteen extension. However, the schoolyard has become overgrown and overgrown over the years. Even on closer inspection, the schoolyard and the sports facilities can only be guessed at between the mature trees.

As part of a multi-stage application process, the hochC office was awarded the contract for the open space planning in LPH 2 to 8 for the future Phönix elementary school in 2016. The client was the Berlin-Lichtenberg district authority.

The design concept for the new schoolyard of the Phönix elementary school was developed with the aim of preserving as much of the beautiful and, in some cases, old trees as possible. In view of the space required for the playground and sports fields, this was a challenge that was ultimately overcome by slightly altering the layout of the school grounds: The Roads and Green Spaces Department was prepared to add parts of a public green space to the school grounds – internal district administrative assistance for the Education and Sports Department.

Our aim was to further develop the green and tree-covered character of the open space. A large proportion of the existing trees were therefore embedded in green islands of a varied spatial structure.

The green areas in the schoolyard also serve as infiltration areas. The inflow of rainwater to the sewage system was minimized, although the subsoil has poor infiltration values. For this reason, permeable paving with a large proportion of joints was chosen to retain a large proportion of the rainwater on site. Wherever possible, the remaining water running off the surfaces is directed into large, shallow troughs where it can slowly seep away or evaporate as surface infiltration. The principle of the sponge city is consistently implemented in the schoolyard.

The arrangement of the green islands and the use of the open space behind the sports hall create exciting spaces of different sizes in the schoolyard of the Phönix elementary school, which enable individual appropriation by the pupils: There is a large, contiguous courtyard area for running and romping as well as a circuit around the sports hall. In between, there are niches and spaces for quieter, more secluded activities. Concrete segments along the edges of the islands can be used for sitting, but also for climbing, balancing and so on. The paved areas are also used by the children to ride on all kinds of vehicles, which can be borrowed during breaks and after-school activities.

Two playground areas have been added to the schoolyard in order to provide equally interesting play opportunities for children from first to sixth grade. A climbing playground invites the slightly older children to play. A slightly lower rope net system can also be used by younger children.

The play equipment is mainly made of robinia heartwood and painted in blue-green tones, which blend in very well with the natural surroundings of the old existing trees. The large climbing play area offers balancing challenges with various high robinia beams. The smaller children balance at a lower height and with additional holding ropes. They are also challenged by a small obstacle course on stilts and a climbing wall integrated into the play area.

All the play equipment was individually developed and manufactured for the facility. The play facilities in the courtyard are also particularly important because most of the children attend after-school care and use the open space to play in the afternoon. In addition, many of the children live in rather cramped conditions in the surrounding prefabricated housing area and need space for exercise outside their homes.

The new small playing field with an EPDM surface can be used during breaks and also during after-school care, the fence is open to the schoolyard. To enable various ball sports on the field, there are ground markings in different colors for different sports. Ground sockets with EPDM covers make it possible to set up volleyball posts and other equipment, for example.

The adjacent running track ends in an unusual jumping pit: instead of jumping into the classic rectangular long jump pit, you jump into another sand-filled play island, which also contains a large swing (with sufficient safety clearance, of course). In this way, areas can be used multifunctionally; no space is wasted. Multi-functional, multi-coded areas are the order of the day at a time when open spaces in the city are becoming increasingly scarce and must be used sustainably.

Some elements from the original schoolyard design have been saved for the new era: For example, some boulders were secured and re-set to form a stone circle or meeting point on a spacious meadow area. There is also the possibility of creating a school garden in this area in the future.

In future, many children will come to school by bike – the catchment area has been tailored accordingly in the large district of Lichtenberg. For this reason, a large number of bicycle racks have been provided under the existing trees near the main entrance. In order to protect the tree roots and not to seal any further surfaces, a gravel turf surface was installed in this area.

The newly designed forecourt of the Phönix elementary school on Wartiner Strasse will be laid out as a generous open space. The existing tree grid of plane trees shields the square. It leads to the school’s new main entrance, which is designed as an extension with wide steps and a barrier-free ramp. The paving used for the paved areas is irregularly shaped and formally follows the concept of the island.

The tree population was supplemented by six new trees that are resilient to climate change: golden lychee, plane tree, Norway maple and hazelnut. In the peripheral areas of the school grounds, shrubs were planted to provide screening and create space. The central green areas of the schoolyard are largely laid out as lawns, which are also available to the children as play areas. The playing area to the south of the small playing field will also be used as a sports and gymnastics field if required.

The much-needed and eagerly awaited new school site could finally be used by the pupils after the 2021 summer vacations.

Client: Lichtenberg District Office of Berlin

Commissioned service phases: LPH 2 to 8

Parties involved: mhb Planungs- und Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (building construction)

Outdoor facilities area: approx. 8,600 square meters

Project period: 2016 to 2021

Construction costs: approx. 1,400,000 euros gross for KG 500

hochC Landschaftsarchitektur was founded in 2006 by Claus Herrmann and has been jointly managed by Lioba Lissner and Claus Herrmann since 2017. hochC realizes high-quality and economical planning in all service phases and professionally accompanies their implementation. There are currently around 20 employees working for hochC. A core of permanently employed colleagues is supplemented by freelancers, student employees and interns.

Open spaces are individually integrated into the landscape by hochC and historic parks and gardens are carefully restored. In all projects, special attention is paid to the sense of history of the place and the people who enter it. It is therefore a matter of course to involve local residents and interested parties in the planning process. hochC also develops forward-looking concepts for cultural landscapes and integrates renewable energies into the townscape and landscape. There is a particular focus on sustainability and climate adaptation. In order to always have the core issues and most important levers in mind, hochC has formulated the ’10 commandments of sustainability‘ for planning at hochC. In addition, all projects are playfully checked for compliance with sustainability criteria using the ‚Touchstone‘ sustainability tool developed in-house.

Our mission statement: TOGETHER. SUSTAINABLE. SHAPE. Working together is very important to us. That’s why we work transparently, trustingly and respectfully as a team and with our planning partners. This guarantees that all talents can work in a targeted manner. We are passionate about planning sustainable open spaces with a holistic planning approach. This results in future-oriented solutions in which economic, environmental and social aspects are given equal consideration. We are always on the lookout for new and challenging planning tasks in exciting social areas and develop well-designed results for our clients.

Shaping open spaces sustainably together – that is our goal.

The March issue of G+L is dedicated to the topic of schools: Find out what a school playground should look like in 2025, what pupils and teachers want and how digital education is faring in Germany’s schools in the project presentations, interviews and commentaries in the March issue. The magazine is available here in the store.

In addition to the magazine, you can discover more schoolyard projects on the G+L website here.