DS Smith has created an alternative outdoor classroom at Teleki Blanka Elementary School and the Elementary Art School in Füzesabony, Hungary.
This is the third institution to benefit from the Hungarian eco-classroom initiative that was initially launched in 2020 in Budapest, in collaboration with the Department of Residential Building Design (BDE) at the Budapest University of Technology (BME) and the local municipality. It was funded by £10,000 from the DS Smith Charitable Foundation, with additional support from the local municipality, and more than one hundred volunteers have participated in the construction.
The project is intended to create an opportunity for teachers to engage pupils in education and recreational activities with a memorable and impactful focus on the environment. The new classroom is therefore integrated into the schoolyard as a multifunctional space to serve as a hub for education, leisure, and community activities. The eco classroom is an inspiring environment for pupils to learn and play and provides teachers with a new tool to observe natural surroundings and develop an understanding of their cycles and relevance to sustainability.
Levente Szabó, Cluster Director, DS Smith Packaging Hungary Kft, said, “Our factory in Füzesabony plays a key role in the company. We wanted to demonstrate how important Füzesabony, its residents, and the work carried out here are to DS Smith. This project allows sharing our purpose and mindset more widely, helping to promote and deepen our circular economy approach, while supporting communities. Beyond this, we aim to engage and activate as many people as possible, which is why we built the project on volunteering, so that the participants feel the power of joint forces – which is the key to a more sustainable future.”
DS Smith’s and the Department of Residential Building Design at the Budapest University of Technology (BME) and the school’s architecture students have been involved from the outset, and collaborated with the school’s pupils, teachers, and parents to design the space. The architects also installed board cladding and parapets on the higher sections to allow plants to grow over time and raised garden beds have been installed in other areas.
Zsófia Dankó DLA and Péter Sugár DLA, lecturers of the BME Department of Residential Building Design, added, “The project is special for several reasons: it may be small in scale, but it offers enormous freedom and provides architecture students the opportunity to develop in an experimental genre. Additionally, they experience firsthand what it feels like to work directly with a customer, sharing in the joy and love, which are feelings and insights that can’t be taught through textbooks or lectures. The TérTisz has an excellent design that sparks children’s imaginations, and importantly, it can easily be built by volunteers. It is an open system that can be expanded according to the needs of children.”
Previous DS Smith eco classrooms were launched in Budapest in 2020, Nagykáta in 2022, and Füzesabony in 2024.
