Extension of the Kós Károly Vocational School by 3H ARCHITECTS

The project aimed to expand the vocational school’s 1970s building with new classrooms, a sports hall, and a workshop wing. The primary challenge lay in achieving a harmonious integration between the existing and the new structures, ensuring that the extension would serve as an organic continuation of the original building, while together forming a renewed, contemporary urban ensemble.

Radiating from the axis, like the spokes of a Segner wheel, are the classrooms, the underground gymnasium, workshops, and the cafeteria, located across both the existing and newly added structures. As a complement to the existing building, this axis – highlighted by a library situated on a bridge and an adjoining atrium – establishes a connection between spaces for learning, practical education, and community life.

The design proceeded along a logic of continuation while simultaneously honoring the architecture of the 1970s. We sought to recognize the value of the existing, increasingly obsolete building, to identify opportunities that remain relevant today, and, by rethinking its formal composition and responding with contemporary material choices, to extend what was already there.