Xplore Agora Secondary School

Amsterdam (NL)

NOMINATED FOR THE “GOUDEN AAP” PRICE 2026

Xplore is a hyper-flexible school building and the first building specifically designed for the Agora educational concept, which focuses on the autonomy of children. This autonomy is also reflected in the design process by Studio Ard Hoksbergen, in which students and teachers were involved.

The request to the architect was to design a hyper-flexible building capable of accommodating future changes. All spaces can be separated or connected for different types of groups using flexible partition walls. The building was realized through intensive participation. Additionally, the building is nature-inclusive due to the inclusion of nesting boxes on the facades and the choice of facade planting.

The facade consists of prefab elements. Therefore, the building could be constructed entirely without scaffolding. All facade elements were fully pre-assembled in the factory, complete with concrete, masonry, insulation, frames, glass, and facade grilles. The carefully selected salmon-pink facing bricks were applied at an angle across the facade plane, thus following the serrated lines of the concrete plinth. At the entrance and window sections, a frost-resistant ceramic tile was chosen, perfectly matching the aluminium frames.
(Source: www.ardhoksbergen.nl)

Architect: Studio Ard Hoksbergen
Construction company: Hegeman Bouw en Infra BV
Photos:          MWA Hart Nibbrig Fotografie
Supplier:        The specially shaped facing bricks and the matching ceramic tiles were supplied by De Nis BV