Sensitive Orthogonality

architects Nicholas Dodd, Tadej Glažar, Ana Kučan, Vaso Perovič & Arne Vehovar
project Elementary School on Rinža, Kočevje, Slovenia
written by Uroš Lobnik

 

It is the neglect of architectural sensitivity that represents the main problem in really accepting modernist architecture in the life of contemporary urban people.The concept of the elementary school in Kočevje is, with its orthogonal, rational ground plan, surprisingly modernist (return to the 60s), with an attentive disposition and design of volumes and selection of textures, oriented at the same time towards tactility (a 90s element).The building, suffused with a natural and rational aesthetic, is sensitive. It puts a direct encounter between the natural and the built back into Slovene architecture.The school and its exterior design , from whole to details, are shot through with the basic conceptual design of the house in the woods, and the interior is conceived in precisely the same way. House and forest are inseparable.