Our Journey
20 years ago the Degerloch Campus opened in its present location. It was the continuation of a dream started by pioneering parents in 1985. Their dream and that building celebrated international education in the city and it was the foundation for subsequent years of serving families from all over the world here in Stuttgart.
Today, we prepare for a new beginning. A new investment in 21st century education achieving, what we call the Future of Education. Now.
Planning for ISS Tomorrow began over two years ago with the school asking the entire community what they value in education. What really needs to drive learning forward. Parental organizations, staff committees and students spent an entire year answering the essential question, what will school look like for our students’ grandchildren?
It is interesting, in these times, that over 44% of all commentary 2 years ago emphasized the impact of technology and 24% spoke of the importance of personalized learning. A total of 38% spoke of life balance and environmental sustainability. It seems like our community really was thinking ahead.
The Board and School leadership then embarked on a year of research visiting schools all over the world including Prague, Mumbai, and Dubai and like international school here in Germany. Visits and subsequent online research and interviews focused on the key areas realized from the Driving Learning Forward process.
- Collaborative Learning
- Sustainability
- Nutrition and Well Being
- Conferencing
- And Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM)
Lastly, the Board spent time with a variety of experts on educational space and finance including renowned architects such as Rosan Bosch, Prakash Nair and Kirstin Bartels.
With all of this in place, the Board worked with school leadership to present a vision for the future of ISS that included an ambitious investment in a new Degerloch Upper School. Planning for the new facility began with various task forces that investigated key priorities such as Design/Makerspaces, Health and Nutrition and other facility offshoots of our Driving Learning Forward values. Then we developed workshops with parents, students and staff to investigate particular needs for Grade clusters 6-8, 9+10, the final two years of the IB Diploma program and what we believed would be best represented as “the heart” of the new building complex.
Regulations and limitations along with the fact that our current upper school buildings are the oldest facilities we have dictated the “where” of the project, as did our recent investment in science facilities in the STEAM wing located next to our newest building, the Upper School sports hall. And after significant negotiation for proper finance and a robust and exhaustive cost review process in tandem not only with our architects but with our selected contractor, the school is prepared for a construction period between the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2023.
Construction
In the Spring of 2021, we were excited to announce the plans for our new Upper School facility.
On July 5th, 2022, we began to demolish our older facility with construction on the new facility beginning a few months later. We plan for the project to be completed in time for the 2023 school year.
Key construction expectations include:
- Installation of Temporary Class Facilities completed August 20, 2021
- Demolition of Upper School Wing and Aula completed August 20, 2021
- Installation and preparation of Upper School entrances and recreation completed August 25, 2021
- Construction of new facility begins November 2021*
- Construction of new facility completed August 2023
Like our current building, the new facility feature a welcoming single entrance and reception desk that will significantly improve security. Upon entering, a visitor will be immediately located in the heart of the new building, featuring our emphasis on STEAM with makerspaces, design spaces and a significantly improved performing arts cluster that can also provide important conferencing opportunities. Our intent is to welcome not only the ISS community but the town, the state, indeed the world as we believe this new facility will be a beacon of educational best practice and collaboration and we want to share what we do with everyone.
Moving upstairs will bring visitors to a special creative hotspot with flexible walls for our Diploma students to collaborate and test. But this first floors continues the heart of our facility by providing expanded and improved Visual Arts facilities emphasizing our commitment to creativity. This floor will also feature a quiet space for staff as part of the wellness commitment and a more collaborative and accessible administration cluster for admissions and leaders of the school.
Moving up an additional level will bring the visitor to two grade level clusters that feature purposely built collaborative spaces to encourage more personalized learning. Students will be able to participate in traditional class spaces, smaller breakout rooms, collaborative areas for small group and individual instruction and state of the art technology. Based on an international theme, each cluster also provides direct access to an outdoor terrace where learning can continue in the fresh air. This floor also features a dedicated science space expanding our facility to support lab experiences.
he top floor provides a third cluster area and an additional creativity or art lab next to an innovative center for our IT team. Designed to emulate the Apple “Genius bar” these spaces also have access to outdoor terrace learning.
The roof of the building features a full array of solar panels and the basement houses state of the art heating and cooling facilities that utilize the latest technologies that significantly lower our environmental impact. The building itself is also constructed with materials that are as sustainable as possible.
Finally, we have worked carefully with student advice to provide a full service kitchen, the first time here at ISS, that can prepare fresh onsite meals. Instead of an full cafeteria, our concept provides multiple eating areas featuring different types of food for students to enjoy in their clusters, on the terraces or the number of smaller eating areas throughout the US facility.
More nutritious food is one of our investments in wellness but we are also providing a greater variety of activities and outdoor spaces on our back pitch. These facilities expand our current provision and will be used by our PE department and our sports verein.
The International School of Stuttgart is proud to invest in our people and expanded programming these past years and this building project, in tandem with renovations in our Degerloch Lower School and Sindelfingen Campus represents our final investment for the Future of Education. Now.