Buzz is spreading around Denmark this week following the completion of the design capital’s first-ever purpose-built architectural school in Aarhus, its second-largest city.

The Danish firm ADEPT has converted a 12,500-square-meter (135,000-square-feet) former railyard site at the Aarhus School of Architecture to deliver an innovative approach to learning to one of Europe’s most respected architecture schools.

The new building offers students the chance to experiment in their own education, collaborating with each other in a cross-disciplinary space that is itself the byproduct of intensive user input and a process that circumvented internal hierarchies of building design and project organization. 

“It is a building that was designed to never be enough in itself,” ADEPT partner Martin Krough said in a statement. “Only through its occupants is it complete."

The terraced structure carries an industrial overtone as exposed materials and MEP elements help the development visually communicate how buildings get constructed. It is designed to allow maximum spatial flexibility, which will, in turn, create spontaneous “synergies” between students working in an environment Krough said will be driven by transparency and the melding of public and private space.

“The dream was a robust structure, a living laboratory of architecture,” he said. “This has inspired the workshop-like design, that presents itself like an anti-icon — an empty canvas made for ideas, creativity and learning.”

The new building replaces ten smaller facilities that have been in use since the school opened in 1965. ADEPT said the development will offer a 50%-reduction in energy consumption versus its predecessors. Additional images can be viewed below.