Healthy learning environment
The University College South Denmark runs three study programmes at its campus in the Danish city of Aabenraa. The campus buildings have been designed by Henning Larsen Architects with a key focus on creating robust classrooms with lots of daylight and good acoustics.
The Campus Aabenraa is home to the study programmes in educational sciences, social sciences and health sciences. Henning Larsen Architects has designed a college which, with its transverse wings and saddle roofs, matches the South Jutland market town of Aabenraa in both size and profile.
The building is shaped like a small town within the city, with various streets, squares and the administration as a centrally located ‘town hall’.
Black and dark grey brick have been used for the exterior façades, while materials such as concrete, linoleum and Troldtekt acoustic panels in the colour natural wood are used inside. In order to fully exploit the daylight, all the classrooms are on the same level so it is possible to draw light down into each room.
Outstanding reverberation
The ceiling helps to regulate the acoustics in the classrooms because, with the slop-
ing ceilings, there are fewer parallel surfaces to reflect the sound back and forth. Combined with the Troldtekt acoustic panels, this ensures a low reverberation time in each room.
“The client is very impressed with the sound quality in the rooms. And because the acoustic ceiling works better than the simulation, it has been possible to use less sound dampening on the walls,” says Kasper Dige Larsen, project manager at Henning Larsen Architects.
