It is well known that you can save money when buying used items, such as cars, bicycles and clothing – and apparently also school buildings. The community of Vaterstetten could acquire such a building in a few years in order to remedy the lack of space at the Wendelstein School.
Specifically, it is a three-story building made of wooden modules that is currently in the playground of the Neubiberg high school. It accommodates the so-called predecessor classes of the Putzbrunn Gymnasium, which is currently under construction. According to a current estimate, the classes could probably move to the correct high school building at the beginning of the 2026/2027 school year. The container construction would then no longer be needed – it could be dismantled and reassembled in Vaterstetten.
In Vaterstetten, the proportion of children and young people in the population is growing particularly rapidly
Architect Jan Weber-Ebnet from the Bauwärts office made the proposal at the most recent municipal council meeting. This was commissioned to investigate what space requirements there will be at the Vaterstetten primary schools in the coming years and how these can be expanded if necessary. The background is that two developments are currently making the schools in the larger community narrower. On the one hand there is the increasing demand for all-day care – to which there will also be a legal entitlement in four years. According to the experts in Vaterstetten, at least this will no longer have any major consequences – on average 80 percent of primary school children take advantage of some form of all-day offer. Conversely, this means that Vaterstetten already has the problems that other municipalities may only face in a few years.
In the case of the Brunnenstraße primary school, the planners see potential for expansion, especially in the south.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The strong population growth in the municipality, which was mainly triggered by influx, also has an impact on the schools. This, so it is expected in the town hall, should continue steadily even without the construction of large residential areas, on the one hand through densification, on the other hand through the generational change in older settlements – where many young families then often move in at the same time. The forecast on which the school planning now presented assumes that by 2030 more than 29,000 people will live in Vaterstetten, at the beginning of 2021 there were around 25,000. The increase in children and young people has been particularly high since then.
An extension by a train is possible at two school locations – if construction takes place there
This primarily affects the districts of the schools on Brunnenstrasse and Wendelsteinstrasse. Both are currently three trains, one of which would have to be expanded by one train in the coming years. According to the planner Weber-Ebnet, this would theoretically be possible at both locations – but with different levels of effort and different degrees of disruption to school operations.
The fountain school could be expanded at two points in the south of the building. With rather little effort, the narrow side pointing towards Brunnenstraße could be extended at the end, instead of three specialist rooms and one classroom there would then be four classrooms and two specialist rooms, the missing one could be created instead of a classroom moved to the new extension.
A new building on the south-west side would also be possible, two variants are conceivable here. The smaller one would have five rooms on two floors, currently there are four in total. However, if an additional corridor were to be set up in Brunnenstrasse, the planners would need a larger extension with two nine rooms each plus an extension on the narrow side of the adjacent building.
The Wendelstein School gymnasium is to be demolished once the new building is complete. The used school from Neubiberg could be built on the site.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
If, on the other hand, the Wendelstein School is to have four classes, the office will propose an extension on the spot where the gymnasium is currently located. A new building has already been decided for them, including additional places for the after-school care center; when this is finished, the old hall could be demolished. Either a two-story building with a total of 16 additional rooms could then be built towards Alpspitzstraße – or the Putzbrunn school containers could be set up there.
According to Mayor Leonhard Spitzauer (CSU), it is anything but certain that this will happen. The idea came about because the office that designed the new school gymnasium for Vaterstetten is also planning the Putzbrunn high school. There are therefore no concrete plans to relocate the used school to the larger community, nor are there any estimates of the costs. However, these are likely to be well below those of a new building – and the used building is also resource-saving: “If we succeed, we will get the sustainability prize,” says Spitzauer.
At least at the new elementary and middle school, there is enough space
Not everyone on the board was as enthusiastic about the idea as the mayor. Josef Mittermeier (SPD) complained that – regardless of whether it was a new or used building – only “an emergency solution” would be created. He recalled the discussion a few years ago about completely rebuilding the school, “we shouldn’t give that up”. In fact, you already have that, said Spitzauer: by deciding to build the new gym on the current school property. Because this makes it impossible, as with the elementary and middle school, to build a new building at a different location while the school continues to operate in the old one. Klaus Willenberg (FDP) warned that the one on Brunnenstrasse should not be forgotten when expanding the Wendelstein School. Because even if this should not be expanded to four trains, there is still a need for renovation.
How to proceed with the schools is to be decided at the meeting in November or December. Although the mayor had suggested that the Wendelstein School be specified as the school to be expanded, this question was postponed at Mittermeier’s request.
Finally, the municipal council made one more decision: Since the capacities of the new elementary and middle school are sufficient according to the planners, the decision to build a new after-school care center for the school was canceled again.