Tveiterås Skole | Hugo Lütcherath

Tveiterås school is Bergen municipality's only special school, and is 3,500 square meters spread over 2 floors. The school is being built for 40 pupils and 56 staff.

Tveiterås school is Bergen municipality's only special school, and is 3,500 square meters spread over 2 floors. The school is being built for 40 pupils and 56 staff.

The project has been designed with a focus on all student areas being on one level, while at the same time trying to preserve the natural character of the plot as much as possible. The building is given an L-shape, which clearly defines a garden side and a traffic side. This has been an important focus, as all pupils are delivered by car-based transport due to their functional impairments.

The student group is very complex in terms of functionality and development, with varying degrees of multi-functional disability, mental retardation and rare syndromes. In today's river group, approx. half on the autism spectrum and approx. half are wheelchair users.

The school is organized in two wings. In each wing there are four home areas, all of which have a separate study room for each student. Two and two home areas share a wardrobe, wc, changing room, sensory room and storage. Teachers have their own workplaces in close proximity to their home areas.
Between each wing, there is a common area with amphitheater, research room, music room, canteen/afterschool and other rooms connected to shared use. The administration is located on level 2.

It has been a good and instructive user process where there has been a great focus on universal design, with extra focus on how the design should be adapted to students
with cognitive and sensory difficulties. Then considering e.g. hypersensitivity to light, sound etc., possibilities for shielding, robust solutions and a simple and logical layout.