Poljane School Square

The renovation of Strossmayer Street in Ljubljana city center raises the question of redesigning the public entrance of Poljane Grammar School, one of the most beautiful examples of the 19th century school architecture in Slovenia. For a building of such significance there should be a thoughtfully designed entrance area.

In recent years, Poljane Grammar School has undergone a gradual refurbishment with thoughtful interventions in the interior, aimed at establishing a strong spatial identity whilst adapting to the modern pedagogical approaches within the existing historical building.

With an aim to provide better outdoor surfaces for pupils, the school started renovating the inner atrium. A project designed by our practice, known as the Pebble Atrium, envisioned a polycentric pattern of irregular rounded triangles where "positive" and "negative space" is clearly formed. Positive white space, in the form of soft triangular shapes, "pebbles", offers a variety of sitting typologies, while negative black space connects the triangular elements into a cohesive and unified urban landscape.

The graphically present urban topography became the new, fifth facade of the building, seen from all the inner school windows, whilst remaining deeply hidden within the strict and thick architecture of the 19th century school typology.

Since Poljane Grammar School certainly affects its surrounding area, if not even a wider urban area of Poljane, our proposal envisages a physical, visual manifestation, a spill over of the "school content" outwards onto the school's front square.

The design language used in the atrium of Poljane Grammar School is thus used to create the new square identity, as a new emphasis in the urban system of public spaces and markets of Ljubljana city. The pebbles are "pouring out" of the atrium into the front square, where they create and regulate the flow of users.

The proposed intervention creates a new, visually larger market made of washed concrete with porphyry aggregate, using forms from the school’s atrium with less intensive washing, subtly connecting the semi-public and public spaces of the grammar school. The new school square features all essentials: a newly paved stone floor in front of the existing cafe, a larger platform in the shade of school trees made of porphyry concrete and covered with wooden boards for waiting and observing, and a large bench under a maple tree in the form of a hollow pebble, also enhancing the entry patio of the adjacent apartment block.

The big bench, an oval-shaped ring on an asphalt surface, is intended for resting under the maple tree, talking, waiting for someone "from afar", cafe visitors, pupils, etc.

This project represents a thorough renovation of the main school square, instigating the regeneration of decaying surrounding built tissue through the introduction of new, evocative urban elements and substantial changes to edge conditions, especially in front of the apartment block and the existing cafe.