School, Limeil-Brévannes

The project had to meet a number of intrinsically linked challenges: creating a dense facility on a limited plot of land, asserting the public character of the building, providing a functional and qualitative response that would last over time, and meeting the challenges of the school calendar.
The project has a clear layout: to the north is a compact 2-storey building, ensuring the institutional identity of the programme, with a linear pedestrian and landscaped forecourt, safely grouping together the pathways to the elementary and nursery schools and access to the common rooms.
This concentration creates a protective cocoon and frees up the space to the south, allowing the courtyards to enjoy the sunshine throughout the day. The emphasis has been placed on planting and diversifying the ambience to ensure a quality daily life.
The façades, finished in zinc flakes of different colours, create a subtle variation in appearance depending on orientation, light and season, contributing to the natural liveliness of the façades.

Thermo-lacquered metal sunscreens, horizontal to the south and vertical to the west, provide an undeniable degree of interior comfort. The wooden beams in the classrooms and the wooden posts in the corridors create a warm, soothing atmosphere, and work in tandem with the large areas of glazing, which are acoustically controlled to ensure an ideal learning environment.
The project is intended to be on an urban scale, but also on a human scale: to meet the client’s current needs, to offer maximum quality for this place of learning that will be the breeding ground for generations to come, and to anticipate future developments by allowing the school’s capacity to be increased by raising the roof.