How do we want to build, learn, live in the future? – Advisory Board of SCHULBAU Hamburg 2025 sets the course

Climate adaptation, nutrition, urban society: When it comes to school construction, it’s no longer just about floor plans. At the beginning of July, the advisory board of SCHULBAU – International Salon and Trade Fair in Hamburg met to determine the main focus of the event on 10 and 11 November 2025. Also at the table: experts from administration, architecture, school development and educational planning.

The meeting marked the start of a thematically focused trade fair that aims to bring together current challenges in educational construction with concrete projects and overarching perspectives. Structural issues as well as practical implementation hurdles were discussed – with a view to Hamburg and far beyond.

Space for Exchange – Prospects for Educational Buildings

The advisory board meeting, chaired by SCHULBAU initiator Kirsten Jung, offered an intensive dialogue between specialist planning, urban development, politics and pedagogical practice. Inke Franzius-Borgwardt (GMH), Andrea Störmer (Office of Education, Department of School Development and Location Planning), Dirk Landwehr (Trapezoid Architecture), Ines Moegling (Ministry of Schools and Vocational Training), Kirstin Bartels (School Construction Consultancy) and Marcia Canales (Marcia Canales Architecture) discussed together on the main topics of educational construction in the city of Hamburg.

The focus was on specific problems: How can existing buildings be made fit for modern education? How can real participation be integrated into planning processes – beyond symbolic dialogue formats? And what does it take to ensure that nutrition, exercise and mental health do not remain just concepts, but can be experienced spatially?

Five main topics for the trade fair

The results of the advisory board form the basis for the content of the trade fair programme. Five topics emerged as particularly relevant:

Communication & Participation
Planning is not a solo run. In Hamburg, the aim is to show how integrative processes based on the Scandinavian model lead to better solutions. Participation should be seen as an opportunity for quality and not as a compulsory exercise.

2. Rethinking existing buildings
Renovations during ongoing operations, dealing with monument protection, pollutants and fire protection – everyday construction poses challenges for teams. It will be discussed how modern spatial concepts with differentiation spaces and open learning landscapes can also be implemented in existing buildings.

Nutrition, exercise & health
New impulses come from practice: children’s cooking studios, open-air sports halls, green schoolyards. The fair wants to show how school life can be thought of together with Active City, health promotion and climate adaptation – including an insight into current funding scenarios.

Mix of Uses & Neighbourhood Reference
From daycare to primary school to assisted living – the coexistence becomes togetherness. Hamburg’s model projects that spatially link education, housing and community will be presented.

5. Procedure, funding & structure
New ways in project organisation – for example through school construction GmbHs or alternative process models for process optimisation – will be just as much a topic as access to current funding programmes, including the Startchancen programme or funds for climate adaptation.

Impulses from Hamburg – and beyond

In addition to local focal points, SCHULBAU Hamburg also opens up a view to the outside world: international impulses from Scandinavia meet urban learning venues such as museums, libraries or church conversions. The educational building is thought of in all its systemic relevance – as a place of social cohesion, energetic transformation and cultural identity.

Excursions to particularly interesting projects were also proposed – including the primary school at Baakenhafen, the Kirchwerder school, the Kieler Straße campus, the Winterhude district school or the Bondenwald grammar school.

Shaping together – with strong partners from education, planning and politics

In 2025, SCHULBAU Hamburg will once again be a platform for supra-regional networking. Central institutions such as the Ministry for Schools and Vocational Education and Training (BSB), which actively supports the topic of educational construction, are also involved. The round will be complemented by the Intermunicipal School Building Association – an association of the cities of Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig and Munich, which discusses the major challenges in educational construction in an exchange of experiences.

Representatives from city and state politics from Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony will bring in additional perspectives – for example on rural school locations, administrative processes or legal frameworks. Together with the curated program and a large number of committed actors, a trade fair format is created that enables real collaboration.

In cooperation with the SCHULBAU trade fair, the State Institute for Teacher Education and School Development (LI) also invites you to its own training program at the Cruise Center Altona, as it did in 2023. In numerous lectures, exchange formats and practical examples, everything revolves around the question of how school can be designed as a holistic place of learning and living. Under the motto “School as a good place”, the focus is on the pedagogical functions of space, the role of the school community and concrete support options.

Anyone who wants to rethink educational spaces and be part of the dialogue about the school of tomorrow should make a note of 10 and 11 November 2025 – and secure your ticket for the SCHULBAU Messe Hamburg now.