Primary School and Music School, Szigetszentmiklós

Architect: Barnabás Winkler
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: Zsolt Batár

Situated in the agglomeration of the capital, Szigetszentmiklós is the most rapidly developing town neighbouring Budapest. On the outskirts of the town a kindergarten and a sports hall was built in 2012, whilst in autumn 2014 children could take possession of the school housed in the same block development. The key to the success of this complex was the analysis of the architectural situation of the site by architects Barnabás Winkler and Gábor Vörös and the spatial organisation of the whole scheme based on this. As a result, the school and the sports hall housed in a block with an elongated two-storey facade appear as an independent town centre in this context. Building units communicating with each other, facades featuring surfaces that rhythmically alternate, vertical and horizontal elements revealing carefully balanced proportions come to interplay. The school housing 24 classrooms reflects order and freedom in the delicate system of its spaces and rules, and harmony is born out of their complexity. Marked by the entrance, the longitudinal axis is joined by three diagonal wings housing classrooms, the ground-floor arcade is continued in a windbreak and then in the two-storey aula covered with a glass roof through which the whole building is flooded by natural light. The entirety of the school offers spacious and multi-functional rooms worthy of a complex urban institution. The sports hall doubles as a gym hall which may be divided into three units if necessary, the flat-floor concert hall may be used for community balls, weddings and other programmes after removing the mobile seats arranged in rows, and the kitchen caters for both the school and the kindergarten.

General design: HAP Tervezőiroda Kft.
Architects: Barnabás Winkler, Gábor Vörös, Csaba Kiss, Béla Mészáros
Interiors: Tamás Radnóti
Structure: Gábor Honti, Gábor Eisler
HVAC: Tamás Kéry, László Benkő, Zoltán Lukács
Electrical engineering: Norbert Ulrich , István Bakos
Public utilities: Közműterv 2006 Kft.
Landscape: Land-A Kft.
Client: Szigetszentmiklós Város Polgármesteri Hivatala
Main contractor: Market Építő Zrt.