The proposal for the North+ Comprehensive School extends beyond the educational campus. The concept for the planning of a mixed and communal new neighbourhood around the school creates a tangible reverberation of the site’s industrial past and integrates the natural qualities of the local surroundings into the new quarter. A continuous landscape structure interlocks the ensemble of new and old buildings with the surrounding open spaces and the adjoining urban areas.

The public square, situated at the interface of the campus and the urban residential quarter, forms the lively centre of the neighbourhood. This communal centre, identifies as a green meeting point for the entire district of Kassel North. The adjacent library is set within an independent, solitary, urban building block facing the square. Detached from the main school building, the library as a third place follows the innovative pedagogical concept of the school as part of the public infrastructure.

The school is organised as a built organism whose parts communicate closely with each other, creating transitions between activity and retreat, public and sheltered places, where a dynamic everyday school life can emerge. The geometry and topography of the site is optimally utilised through the positioning and formulation of the building volume, with the resulting open spaces simultaneously offering potential programmes to the rest of the neighbourhood.