Playful facade at the high school, Kisa, Sweden

Fiber cement facade panels Cembrit Zenit allow architects to fully utilize their own creativity. The playfully designed facade using ship cladding in an unconventional form is excellent proof of that.
Värgårdsskolan Secondary School is located in the town of Kisa in southern Sweden. This school serves as a meeting place and also as a community center for young people from this town and its surroundings.



In the past year, the school underwent a thorough reconstruction and renovation. The goal of the renovation was to create the best possible environment for education through the use of modern and comfortable school equipment.
The reconstruction, which also included the external environment of the school and an extension, was completed in the summer of 2014.

The original building is made of bricks. Fiber cement facade panels Cembrit were a clear choice for the Tengbom studio team right from the start. For the architects, it was important to materially distinguish yet harmonize the facades of the old and new parts of the school. Cembrit Zenit facade panels precisely met this requirement.

"The school is built of bricks and we wanted to adapt the new facade panels to the existing material. Therefore, we chose Cembrit Zenit facade panels, which met our requirements both in color and shape," says Anders Svensson from the Tengbom studio.

And it is the specific way of laying the facade panels that creates the unusual playful impression conveyed by the facade. It actually utilizes classic ship cladding, but instead of long narrow strips of facade panels, rectangular panels oriented vertically are used. These are then offset by half the height of the panel. The resulting effect is very interesting.

Architect Anders Svensson further adds that another inspiration for him was the traditional wooden church in Notodden, Norway, which has a characteristic "patterned" appearance typical for this location and era. The architects used this as a model when designing the facade of the school's extension.

The building is currently nominated for the Swedish Architecture Award.

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Summary information:
Project: Värgårdskolan
Address: Östgötagatan 8, Kisa, Sweden
Architect: Tengbom Arkitekter, Linköping
Contractor: Jens-Åke Bygg AB
Product: Cembrit Zenit, Pluto

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Cembrit Zenit
Cembrit Zenit are through-colored panels with a completely uniform color surface. The unique combination of colored panes and 100% opaque acrylic coating ensures that the colored panels have a smooth and homogeneous surface. The panels are available in 16 basic shades, including the darkest shade of fiber cement panels on the market, Erebus. The panels stand out for their high strength and low maintenance.
Cembrit Zenit facade panels are very resistant to weather conditions, and therefore resistant to mold, algae, water stains, and common dirt. Another advantage of the through-colored panels combined with a compact coating is their ability to minimize visible scratches on the surface of the panels.

Cembrit Zenit panels are suitable for a wide range of applications from large commercial buildings to facades, gables, and eaves of residential homes.