Education Building Aurora

Aurora is extremely flexible with a modular design. The building is characterized by an open structure. The various teaching and laboratory spaces are connected to the atrium, which houses meeting functions and healthy food pop-up facilities. A spacious central staircase leads through the building. A variety of workplaces can be found around this staircase. This setup encourages interaction and spontaneous meeting. The necessary adaptability has been taken into account, also for the future.

Photography: Ronald Tilleman

Function:
educational building with teaching areas, offices, lab rooms, lecture halls and catering facilities

Client:
Wageningen University & Research

Location:
Wageningen

Status:
in gebruik

We do not know what the education of the future will look like. How do you make a building that gives room to this uncertainty? With sufficient flexibility to be able to anticipate in the future the space requirements, student numbers and function changes. To respond to this required flexibility, LIAG will realize Aurora in three phases, with phases 1 and 2 currently being built in one go. Moreover, there is room to realize small extensions between the phases. And education can continue as usual when the next phase is to be built: we have already taken this into account in our design.

Changes in education

We already provide the required adaptability in the basic design, such as the grid size, the supporting construction, the partition walls and the set-up of the installations. To meet educational needs to the maximum, the lecture halls can be combined together for larger groups. This also applies to the laboratories. We also place flexible walls in the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) rooms and the practical rooms to anticipate the changing group composition and student numbers. Equipping the spaces with screens, equipment and charging points makes them suitable for innovative forms of education. Lectures can be given and groups can work together.

Visibility of the core values

We translated the motto “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life” of WUR into a sustainable and healthy building. Not an anonymous education building, but a transparent building that shows what is being worked on at WUR. This way you can see from the outside what is going on in the building. An open and inviting appearance with logically coordinated function zones: a building that requires no further explanation for the users.

Characteristic is the overview and view of each other. This invites you to meet, inspire and share knowledge. Here you really meet. Aurora has a "green" appearance. Living green is an important part of the interior. This can be seen in the atrium with its terraces, from which there is a beautiful view of the rest of the campus. There is a pleasant indoor climate with good air quality. Daylight floods in abundantly.

The building will be commissioned in September 2021.