Engineering Design of K. Päts Open Air School of Tallinn Under Way

11.01.2014

On October 9, 2009 Amhold Ltd and K. Päts Open Air School of Tallinn entered into contract to carry out a reconstruction project of the school. We will perform the architectural, interior design, structural, water supply and sewerage part of the building, also ventilation and heating, electrical and weak current parts of the building. In addition, we’ll design the control engineering, security systems, external networks, landscaping, streets and courts of the site and perform author’s supervision during the construction period.

K. Päts Open Air School of Tallinn was founded by Estonian Red Cross Head Government in 1938 on the initiative of Konstantin Päts, the Head of State of Estonia. Päts School has developed long-term traditions of teaching children with severe somatic conditions how to get healthy and stay healthy through a regular, health sparing and strengthening daily schedule.

The building complex of Päts Open Air School is a site under the heritage conservation and its construction works were started on September 10, 1935. A design contest of construction project was announced and the first prize was awarded to Mrs. Paula Delachier-Ilves, a female architect living in Paris, Architect Konstantin Bölau made constructional drawings Based on her project. Construction works started by January 1936.

The construction complex of the School included large two-storied main building with annexes, three separately built class buildings and economic building. In addition, next to the main building was a separation building with rooms for sick children, a doctor’s office, apartments for nurses and the school principal. In the surrounding area there was a park with roads, various playgrounds and sports fields, swings, slides and other gymnastics equipment to allow physical development for children in their free time. During the summer holyday there was a children’s summer home operating in the school, where children could nourish their health.

Operations of the school were stopped due to the start of the WW II in 1941; the buildings were readjusted for German military hospital and later, at the end of 1944 for Soviet Navy hospital, which operated until 1948. In 1994, after re-independence of Estonia, the name of the school was re-instated. The school was renamed as Konstantin Päts Open Air School of Tallinn.

According to the initial plans the reconstruction project of Päts Open Air School should be completed by March of 2010.