A college in Paris

The overall volume is both broken up and segmented to create an assembly of smaller units which integrate into the wooded landscape.
From afar, the buildings blend into the forest, their natural wood colour matches the shades of the surrounding landscape. This foreground is a protective filter which forms the main element of the project's architectonic composition. This shift between the foreground and the background of the facade increases the feeling of interiority of the inner spaces and gives substance, a frame, between these spaces and the landscape around the school.

The school is located in the eastern part of the site, in front of the half-board buildings, so as to integrate into and set off its forest heritage. The low volumetry (ground floor and sporadic first floor) creates a foreground in front of the parts of the site already built, while the location of the houses, occupying less space, in the west, does not form a screen between the southern part and the trees in the protected forest.

Another architectural principle designed to integrate the buildings into their environment is the plantation of all the terraces (including those of the dwellings), to recover on the roof the planted areas lost by the construction of the buildings.
The new school is built around a fully wooden pole-beam supporting framework. This structure will be visible and therefore highly present in the qualification of the inner spaces. The outer shell is characterised by a regular rhythm of wooden frames, either glazed or filled with a wooden panel. In front of this façade, a vertical and horizontal solar protection system deploys louvered boards.

Rational operating principles are superimposed and result from the architectural intentions described above. Breaking down the overall volumetry into smaller units organises and structures the school's various activities.
Each entity has its own volume, making the overall structure and each part highly recognisable. The new school can therefore be seen as a series of clearly identified and distinguishable sequences.
Due to the concern to keep the school near the site entrance, the entrance hall could be located reasonably close to the access gate of the new square. The gate leads directly to the exterior parvis in front of the entrance hall, surrounded by the bicycle shed and the multipurpose hall. An independent access from the exterior parvis to the multipurpose hall is planned. The lodge controls access to the street, the bicycle shed, access to the hall and inside the hall.

Thanks to the north and south side exposure of the hall, the depth of the wooded site can be appreciated immediately on entering the school. From the hall, a large arcade leads to all the inner spaces of the school in an order determined by the functional program.
This first sequence leads us to the building's central articulation and orientation space: access to the covered area and the playground and the two staircases leading upstairs.
The second sequence consists of the science block overlooking the garden to the south and the arts block in the north, with its own outer terrace for outdoor activities in a protected area. The third sequence consists of a building which, due to its activities, must be adjacent to the vehicle access: the technology block and the maintenance rooms.
The various sequences are identified and separated by perpendicular breaks offering transverse views of the site from the central arcade.
The ordinary classrooms for literature, maths and computing-multimedia are located on the first floor.

As our architectural approach aims at reducing the impact of the building on the environment, our work on definition and qualification of the exterior surfaces demonstrates a desire to minimise the waterproofed areas and best manage the runoff water on the site, even taking advantage of it for the project.
The western part of the site is largely reserved for preservation of the classified forest. Five school houses with south-facing gardens are built on the edge of the forest. The small volumes act as filter between the rear of the wooded site, the vehicle access and the planted car park. Philippe Gazeau

Photo © Philippe Ruault

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