Ecosphere | Forestry school Bad Reiboldsgrün
Learning spot in the woods
The administrative villa of the former health clinic is now a guest house with 14 single rooms and blends harmoniously into the overall complex of the Forestry Education Centre. Located in the middle of a beautiful forest area, the school centre not only imparts knowledge today, but also symbolises the connection between future foresters and nature.
Repurposing of the administrative villa
In 1825, Carl Driver, an ophthalmologist from Chemnitz, established Saxony's first sanatorium for lung diseases in Bad Reiboldsgrün. After the Second World War, the sanatorium was converted into various specialist clinics until the building stood empty from the 1990s onwards. Plans had been in place since the early 2000s for Saxony's forestry school to move to the site in Bad Reiboldsgrün, but the former sanatorium first had to be renovated and new buildings added for the education of foresters.
Construction work on the renovation began in 2019. In the case of the former administrative villa, the focus was not only on architectural features but also on fire protection, thermal insulation and moisture protection. The aim was to implement the relevant requirements without significantly altering the design of the 19th-century façade.
30 mm maxit ecosphere
The property needed insulation that would reflect the historic plaster surfaces and match the appearance of the façade. In order to meet the thermal parameters, maxit ecosphere was the chosen solution.
The surfaces were plastered with a 30 mm thick layer of maxit eco 72 sprayable external insulation and then reinforced with a layer of maxit eco 73. The finish was a historic top coat consisting of maxit ip trowel-applied pumice (6 mm) and a coat of silicate paint. Applying a trowel finish with such a grain size requires great craftsmanship to ensure that the surfaces look uniform after the scaffolding has been removed. In order to transfer the higher weight loads of the top coat to the insulation, the reinforcement layer was additionally mechanically fastened with maxit screw anchors S1.
The clear goal of preserving the character of the building was achieved thanks to the low insulation thickness, which ensured that the existing granite window jambs were only recessed by the thickness of the finishing plaster after renovation.