The new building of the IKC Anspach does justice to the history of Dongen with its many tanneries. The appearance of the new building is inspired by this and the working title of the design (Leerhuis Anspach) also referred to this. The reference to the tanneries can be found mainly in the main shape of the building with the weatherboarded black planks. The lifting beam in the front façade is also a nod to the past. Furthermore, the design has largely taken into account the large monumental trees present and an attempt has been made to minimize nuisance for local residents.
This is reflected, among other things, in the Z-shape of the floor plan, which means that the trees have been built around them. The part with the roof is the highest and is placed as far away as possible from the neighboring plots, so that there is hardly any impact on existing sight lines and sunlight.
The building of the IKC Anspach is based on the educational vision of the school. This vision assumes that children can learn skills and competences at their own pace and, above all, that they can learn from each other. The new building had to challenge and invite this. Flexible working methods and varying group compositions had to be easily possible in the building structure. For this reason, the building is designed with three open learning areas instead of 12 closed classrooms. The open auditorium with grandstand stairs connects all learning areas, both horizontally and vertically. Within each learning area, there is one room that can be closed off to carry out noise-sensitive or noise-producing activities.
One of the spearheads in the design was attention to moving education and the relationship with the outside terrain. Furthermore, the school wanted to be fully accessible to all children of Dongen between 0 and 12 years old. A daycare centre has therefore become part of the building. This part is naturally connected to the learning area of the lower grades, so that the flow of children to primary school can take place in a natural way.
