005School canteenAarhus, DK / 2022

Canteen Nord

One room for 340 school meals a day, and nothing else.

Open competition 2020, first prize. Completed August 2022.

Single-storey timber and glass building lit at dusk with planting along the frontage

01DescriptionSchool canteen

The school had run its canteen out of a corridor for nineteen years. The budget allowed for 380 square metres, which is 1.1 square metres per pupil sitting, so every square metre spent on circulation would have been taken from a table.

The building is therefore a single room with doors on all four sides. There is no lobby, no corridor and no staff-only route. The kitchen is open along the north wall and the servery is the wall.

Structure is a glulam frame at 2.4-metre centres, infilled with 220 mm of straw and finished in lime. It is the cheapest square metre the practice has built and the only one that has been copied twice.

Title block

Programme	Canteen and kitchen, 340 covers
Client	Aarhus Kommune
Site	School grounds, Aarhus N
Floor area	380 m2
Structure	Glulam frame, straw infill, lime render
Cost	6,400 DKK per m2
Procurement	Open competition, 2020
Status	Completed August 2022
Practice	Aggregat, Basel

02Photographs03 plates

Living room with an open timber stair and glazing onto a terrace — 005.01South doors, open from April to October

White render and timber villa above a pool, seen from the garden — 005.02Staff building, existing

Curved glass office facade on a corner with palms reflected in it — 005.03The corridor the canteen replaced