Designed by Bureau SLA, In Amsterdam, every primary school student is provided with his or her own 6m2 garden to care for.  These students are also enrolled in classes where they learn about nature and the environment, held in one of the buildings dedicated to the purpose throughout Amsterdam.  As of this year though, Amsterdam Noord becomes host to a new building designed specifically for this purpose: Nature & Environment Learning Centre. This new building replaces two temporary structures (which housed the program for the previous five years).  In addition to being the first purpose-designed and build a center in the program, it?s also unique in that it works both as a classroom and as an educational tool itself: the bus Olding’s sustainability can be seen and be felt by all who come in contact with it. Photography: Filip Dujardin
As would be expected, Nature & Environment Learning Centre (NME) is energy neutral. This in and of itself is not unusual: the nonconsumption of fossil fuels is a property of almost any new building (or at least it should be). What makes the energy management of the NME interesting is that its sustainability is visible, tangible, and easily perceptible to even the most casual observer.  For example, the seemingly eccentric shape of the building turns out to be a completely functional one, dictated by a desire to achieve optimal orientation of the roof towards the sun, thereby maximizing the efficiency of the bus Olding’...