After its destruction during the 2nd World War, the Wilhelm-Maybach School was rebuilt and started running as a technical college in 1955. Today a vocational trade school is located here offering the entire range of training in motor vehicle handcraft. Architecturally speaking, this is a typical post-war building – a solid and casually constructed single-sided arrangement of rooms from the corridor that retains something industrial about it and which radiates the unmistakable demure charm of its time. When the option of building an additional storey was examined it became clear that – as is typical of buildings constructed during the fifties – work had been carried out without any static reserves in the original building. Erecting a fourth storey directly onto the existing building would then have necessitated extensive measures to underpin and strengthen the fabric of the building below. The additional storey therefore required its own supporting structure built virtually above the existing school. Derived from the key area of training and the name of the school, the architectural outline of a “bodywork” was developed which was to be parked on top of the school roof. This bodywork in turn is braced onto the ground via long rods and inserted into the ground like jackstraws to create a maximum degree of lightness. The new extension is to be spaced clearly away from the old building so that the specific nature of the latter is clearly visible. The completely detached design of the additional storey also enables it to be removed again in 15 or 20 years without any extensive work being carried out on the original building, so that the old Maybach School remains standing unaltered. In view of the demographic development in the numbers of our students and in keeping with long-lasting solutions in school construction this is certainly an aspect that is worthy of mention.