Henning Larsen has broken ground on Denmark’s first Nordic Swan Ecolabel Primary School. The New School in Sundby, the largest construction project in Guldborgsund Municipality’s history, will be a milestone achievement for both sustainability and educational ambition in Denmark.
The ground-breaking ceremony for the New School in Sundby, located in Denmark’s South Zealand region, marked the launch of a historic project for Danish sustainable school construction. The primary school will be Denmark’s first to be awarded the Nordic Ecolabel, the region’s official sustainability certification according to a range of parameters for energy consumption, indoor climate, chemical exposure, and sustainable material use. Henning Larsen joins SKALA Architects, ETN Architects, MOE, and Autens on a team led by BO-HUS.
The chairman of the Children, Family, and Education Committee of Guldborgsund Municipality, Simon Hansen, was joined by two students from nearby Sundskolen to take the project’s first shovel to the ground. “We write Danish history within school construction. We have made a conscious, political choice to invest in sustainable construction, and our new school gets one of the finest quality stamps with the Nordic Ecolabel,” said Hansen.
The project set out with ambitious goals for not only sustainability parameters, but its potential for local learning and community engagement. The school is designed to meet the UN World Language School requirements for teaching facilities that support the UN Sustainable Development goals through both physical design and teaching curriculum. In addition to creating robust classroom spaces, particular attention was paid to spaces outside the traditional learning environment. “We have designed a school that works in a field between learning and landscape, and where it is not just about the learning that takes place in the building, but the whole route to and from the school and the way the school will connect to the local community,” explained Eva Ravnborg, Partner at Henning Larsen.
The school is expected to open at the end of summer 2022 for approximately 580 students up to grade 9 and is eagerly anticipated in the Sundby community. “It will in every way be a completely unique school and a common house in the local area for the benefit of all citizens in the local community,” says Morten Janik, chairman of the school board. With construction now underway, the school will soon be available as an anchor point for the local community and a global example for progressive teaching environments.
