Upplands Väsby, Stockholm
Swedish-based architectural firm Marge was commissioned to design a new canteen for the Väsby School, which is situated around a multileveled yard and encompasses several yellow brick buildings from the 1940s to the 1990s.
The design of the Väsby School Canteen was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
The site was previously occupied by an older canteen that had become technically obsolete, too small, and ill-equipped to handle the movements of the pupils adequately.
The new canteen is a low brick building with a windowless facade towards the rear loading area while the glazed front facade faces the schoolyard.
On warm summer days, the building can be opened, allowing the children to eat outside under the overhanging roof, facing the schoolyard.
The design has been adapted to a large, unique Douglas fir tree growing immediately adjacent to the canteen. Functioning as a room divider, a glazed atrium in the dining hall provides light and can also be used as an herb garden and for domestic science classes.
The canteen is designed to relate to the existing school buildings and to be durable. In keeping with the older structures, the facade is of high-quality yellow brick.
The canteen forms a new annual ring of the ensemble. In the interior, the brick wall is built with a row of horizontal cavities between the bricks behind which a sound absorber has been placed.
Thus, the spatial design is combined with the requirement to achieve an excellent acoustic environment. To make the foodservice more efficient, the movement flows have been changed. The students now enter the canteen via the old school building, take their food and leave the dirty dishes on their way out.
The room fits 280 students and is also equipped with a folding stage making it possible to use it as an auditorium. Forming part of a larger project to improve school meals, the canteen project has included the renovation and expansion of the old kitchen. The extension adjoins and connects to the newly renovated kitchen.
Project: Väsby School Canteen
Architects: Marge arkitekter
Client: Upplands Väsby Municipality
Contractor: Habitek
Photographers: Johan Fowelin
