Mayor Olaf Scholz lays the cornerstone for the Gateway to the World educational centre

The First Mayor of Hamburg, Olaf Scholz, officially laid the cornerstone for the new educational centre Gateway to the World today, together with pupils and future stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the other buildings of the centre are already taking on form: the primary school Elbe Island School, the Wilhelmsburg Speech and Language Institute and the Kirchdorf-Wilhelmsburg secondary school. The building ensemble will be completed by spring of 2013, in time for the opening of the International Building Exhibition IBA Hamburg.

The Gateway to the World is a key project in the IBA with an investment volume of roughly €60 million, and involves the renovation of existing buildings in the Kirchdorf-Wilhelmsburg secondary school and extensive landscaping in addition to the new construction. The project is financed by funds from the integrated city development department of the Hamburg Ministry of Urban Development and Environment.The new buildings are being constructed on the former grounds of the Elbe Island School on Buddestrasse, separated from the existing structures by the Krieterstrasse. In the course of the project, the Krieterstrasse will be closed to through-traffic in the vicinity of the school and landscaped to evoke a plaza-like atmosphere.The new building will contain a cafeteria, a theatre and an environmental centre. There will also be space in the new building for other uses, including a community college (Volkshochschule), the Wilhelmsburg Institute for Parents, Verikom (an association for intercultural communication and education), the Hamburg Institute for Continuing Education (Weiterbildung e.V.), Rebus (a regional support and advisory network), and Theater am Strom, a mobile children's theater troupe. In the secondary school building, a School & Business Centre and a Science Centre will be built. The redesigned grounds will include a mini pitch and beach volleyball courts and the existing football pitch will be renovated, adding facilities for outside sports to complement the inside offerings that will come with the construction of a three-field Athletic Hall and a new Gymnastics Building.

Today, future users of the educational centre met with project planners, representatives from the ministries, policymakers and other guests at the building site to celebrate the start of construction. The final building is intended as an Energy Centre for all stakeholders to use.

In his dedication speech, Hamburg First Mayor Olaf Scholz emphasized the importance of the educational centre for Wilhelmsburg and its rolemodel status to other city districts. "This new educational centre is part of the Elbe Island Educational Campaign, and as such is intended to support social integration for people living here and to boost the image of Wilhelmsburg as a place to live. Leading up to the IBA Hamburg, we intend to implement integrated city-planning and educational-policy models for the future. The Gateway to the World educational centre is one such model, uniting great hopes and great tasks ahead."

Olaf Scholz handed over to Ties Rabe, Hamburg School Senator: "The Gateway to the World project expands the educational opportunities available to children in Wilhelmsburg, making this district a very desirable place to live from an educational perspective."

"The Gateway to the World educational centre is one of the largest and most innovative school construction projects in Hamburg," said Gertrud Theobald, managing director of SBH (Hamburg School Construction Authority). "This reflects on the nature of the project, a public-public partnership between the SBH in Wilhelmsburg and the GWG Gewerbe real estate organization, modelled after Hamburg Süd. Nearly €60 million has been invested in the project," said Ms. Theobald. Ewald Rowohlt, managing director of GWG Gewerbe, continued: "The Gateway to the World educational centre represents yet another key milestone in making Wilhelmsburg a great place to live."

Uli Hellweg explained why IBA Hamburg considered Gateway to the World to be a worthwhile project from both a city planning and educational perspective, and why they decided to support it: "We're happy to see a new educational centre being built in the middle of Kirchdorf, one that opens up the district and offers educational opportunities for all generations and cultures. Along with schools and daycare centres, Gateway to the World also unites youth and family help organizations, integration assistance and continuing education. The IBA project is making a contribution to lifelong learning for all, and is bound to become an integral social meeting point of the district. Successful city planning always must include strong schools, which IBA Hamburg also intend to develop and support."

The structure will be built according to plans by the office of architects, whose design won a previous architectural competition. The grounds will be designed according to plans by Hamburg-based Breimann & Bruun landscape architects, working together with pupils and parents. The central entry area, for example, which is made up of different ship-shaped surfaces, is based on a pupil-parent competition. The ships are a symbol for the cultures, nationalities and different paths people from distant countries have taken on the way to the island of Wilhelmsburg. When it is completed, the new building will embody a new form of school: an educational centre with public spaces, housing three schools with common multifunctional, environmental and assistive areas, which is inextricably connected to the district. The new building will be constructed as a passive house as certified by the DGNB (German Society for Sustainable Building) and given a wooden façade. The buildings are heated by wooden pellet furnace, solar thermics and photovoltaics. The "Gateway to the World" is one of many components in the Elbe island educational system. With the support of IBA Hamburg, daycare centres, schools and continuing education providers are working together to make Wilhelmsburg a better place to live for families.

Visitors to the event laid the cornerstone together with the mayor. Pupils from all three schools, representatives from the faculty, parents and organisations in the city district showed Olaf Scholz the contents of a time capsule which they designed themselves. Afterwards, they buried the time capsule in the ground of the building site.
The groundbreaking was moderated by Jörg-Robert Schreiber from the Gateway to the World steering committee, who also spoke as a representative of the future users: "This new educational centre is more than a forward-looking school building, it is an expression of a new understanding of education and communal city district development."Jörg-Robert Schreiber, project coordinator, Gateway to the World.

The musical accompaniment for the celebration was also performed by pupils from the three schools, who composed an original "Gateway to the World" song for the occasion.