Medusa Group has designed Akademeia High School in Warsaw with a large central courtyard surrounded by stepped seating that leads to a herb garden roof.
Designed as an alternative to traditional schools, Akademeia High School has a system of flexible rooms that create an "educational ecosystem" of "ambiguous, multifunctional and inspiring spaces".

"Changes in the public education system in Poland have not kept up with changes in the lives of young people," said Medusa Group.
"This was the basis of creating an atmosphere that would encourage people to stay in the school outside class hours."

The school is arranged in a C shape around a courtyard, with teaching spaces located in the middle of the plan and the arms at either end  containing a canteen and an indoor sports court. The canteen, which has been designed to be "like a fashionable restaurant", is used throughout the day, shifting from being a restaurant to a cafe, reading room or performance space.

Externally, the school was designed to have both a public, "urban" presence and a private one, with the facade treatment changing to deal with this.

Facing the street, a steel frame clad in timber planks surrounds a glazed inner facade, providing privacy and creating an effect of translucency. At ground level, this gap becomes a covered walkway that runs around the entire edge of the school.

At the northern corner, the ground floor has been opened up with gla...