Josephine Baker schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

La Courneuve by Dominique Coulon & Associés

This group of schools outside Paris by French architects Dominique Coulon & Associés has walls, ceilings and details picked out in bright orange.

La Courneuve by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The Josephine Baker schools include a primary school on the west of the site and a nursery school to the east.

La Courneuve by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Classrooms in the nursery are located on a floor that cantilevers across the building’s entrance.

La Courneuve by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The project includes playgrounds for both older and younger children, a canteen and a library, as well as a sports ground on the library roof.

La Courneuve by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Internally, brightly coloured hooks fill the walls outside of the classrooms, giving children a place to hang their coats.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

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Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Above: Photograph by Olivier Nicollas

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Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Above: Photograph by Olivier Nicollas

Photography is by Eugeni Pons apart from where stated.

Here are some further details from the architects:


The ‘Josephine Baker’ group of schools recently completed by Dominique Coulon in La Courneuve manages to fit into the difficult context of the ‘Cité des 4000’ neighbourhood, on a site marked by the painful memory of the demolition of the ‘Ravel’ and ‘Presov’ longitudinal blocks of flats. However, it is also capable of opening up inside itself, creating a different landscape, a different place, a utopia.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Above: Photograph by Olivier Nicollas

The project is part of the very subtle town planning scheme adopted by Bernard Paurd, in an attempt to pull together the different signs and traces that are superposed on the site like the various writings on a palimpsest.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The scheme reorganises the neighbourhood on the basis of the right-angled intersection of two historic axes, one leading from Paris – from the Saint-Michel fountain – to St Denis’ Cathedral, the other starting from the cathedral and heading towards St Lucien’s church.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

This crossing of X and Y axes highlights the surfacing of various traces – ruins of a Gallo-Roman necropolis stand where the scarred landscape bears witness to the demolition of the ‘Ravel’ and ‘Presov’ blocks of flats, dynamited on 23 June 2004. As if the map had marked the territory with a tattoo.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Above: Photograph by Delphine George

The group of schools occupies a trapezoid-shaped plot of land obliterated by the non-aedificandi area corresponding to the location of one of the two buildings that were demolished.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Dominique Coulon stays in line with the scheme and the intentions of Bernard Paurd, but seems to consider this scar as the substratum for an act of resilience – a psychological process analysed by Boris Cyrulnik that makes it possible to overcome traumatic situations – rather than the stigma of an irreversible situation. He thus returns spontaneously to his work on twisting shapes, a theme that recurs constantly in his projects.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The requirement to refrain from constructing closed volumes based on the rectangle that is a feature of the plot of land, combined with the constraints in terms of density and height, has enabled him to question the separation of the primary and nursery schools in the brief.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

His proposal therefore sketches out a unitary organisation, deployed with virtuoso skill in the three dimensions of the space between two poles linked by a system of ramps. Thus the nursery school classrooms are pushed to the east, on a floor cantilevered above the entrance, and the primary school classrooms occupy areas to the west overlooking interstitial gardens.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The older children’s playground merges into the area reserved for the younger children, which already contains the shared canteen, while the sports areas have been placed on the roof of the other block, which contains the library shared by the two schools.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Despite its sliding volumes, folds and asymmetry, the building gives a first impression of an enclosed shape with few openings. The primary school classrooms, superposed on the site, only opens up to any real extent to their gardens at the side. Although on the outside the verticality is dominant as a result of the many indentations that break up the façades, it is paradoxically the horizontal aspect that is more evident once through the entrance.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

As if an infinite universe was opening up inside a strictly defined area, welcoming a heterotopia reserved for the children. An initiatory place where the pupils can be cut off from the adult world, so that they can adopt the necessary distance and momentum the better to dive into it in due course.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Particular attention seems to have been paid to passages from one space to another, to thresholds: entering the school, taking off your coat and hanging it up before going through the door into the classroom and sitting down in front of the teacher; laughing as you leave the classroom, and shouting out in the playground at playtime. That is how the building works, from the entrance onwards, in a subtle two-fold movement of advance and retreat.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

An arrangement that recalls the curves and counter-curves of the façade of the St-Charles-aux-Quatre-Fontaines church completed in 1667 by Francesco Borromini. In a protective gesture, the upper floor projects forwards to welcome the children, while the glazed ground floor withdraws and digs in to defuse the drama of separating the child from its parents.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The corridors change shape and expand in front of the classroom doors and receive abundant natural light from the zenith, as if the better to define themselves as areas for decompression before taking a deep breath and plunging into the work areas. Lastly, the canopy of the playground thrusts out well beyond the ramp that leads up to the rooftop sport areas.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

This play of compression and expansion, giving an organic feel to the concrete structure, is further accentuated by use of the colour orange. It covers the floors and occasionally spills over onto the walls and ceilings, rendering the slightest ray of sunshine incandescent and lighting up the roof area.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

This has the appearance of an open hand beneath the complementary blue of the sky, revealed in all its power. All too frequently, as in Jules Ferry’s time, schools seem to be designed as areas for adults reduced to the scale of children. The sequences of traffic paths and classrooms are witness here to a different relationship between the child’s body and space, one that is all the more fused together in that is it not yet totally mediatised by language.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The classrooms, corridors and playgrounds of the ‘Josephine Baker’ schools stretch out and break up around an indefinite body, a body in perpetual transformation, a body of feelings ready to be touched by the slightest ray of sunshine and to perceive a thousand opportunities for play in the slightest variation in the weather.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

The use of natural products – such as linoleum on the floors, and wood for the door and window frames – and the attention paid even to the smallest details contribute to making the building an almost luxurious place, a place hailed enthusiastically at its inauguration by a population of parents and pupils who are keen to turn the page of the demolitions and look resolutely to the future.

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Type of project: Group of schools (nursery + primary)
Client: City of La Courneuve
Team: Dominique Coulon & Associés, Architectes
Dominique Coulon, Olivier Nicollas, Architectes
Sarah Brebbia, Benjamin Rocchi, Arnaud Eloudyi, Florence Haenel, Architects assistants

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Batiserf: Structural Engineer: Philippe Clement, Cécile Plumier, Frédéric Blanc
G. Jost, Mechanical Engineer : Marc Damant, Annie Pikard
E3 Economie : Cost calculation
Bruno Kubler : Paysagiste

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Program: Lecture room, auditorium, administration
Primary school – 10 classrooms
Nursery – 6 classrooms
Leisure center – 6 classrooms
Restaurant
Office for the academy

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Above: Photograph by Olivier Nicollas

Surface Area: 4500 m2 SHON, 6500 m2 SHOB
Cost: 8 000 000 euros H.T

Josephine Baker group of schools by Dominique Coulon & Associés


See also:

.

Médiathèque d’Anzin
by Dominique Coulon
Tellus Nursery School
by Tham & Videgård
Azahar School
by Julio Barreno

Médiathèque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon & Associés

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

This multimedia library in Anzin, France, by Strasbourg architects Dominique Coulon & Associés is wrapped in overlapping slices of concrete.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Reading rooms at the Médiathèque d’Anzin are revealed to the town outside through exposed areas of glazing, while the triangular geometry continues inside.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

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Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

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Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Here’s a little text from the architects:


The building reveals its preciousness at first sight.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Its pure, sophisticated geometry situates it as a public building.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The deliberate areas of transparency reveal its content.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The reading rooms present the building to the town in the manner of an invitation.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The multimedia library is covered with large white veils that reflect the light.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The building asserts it lightness, like an origami.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The successive folds and flaps repeat this image.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

It is white, almost immaterial, like the mere projection of a concept, yet it is brimming with the life that constitutes it beyond its physical limits.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

On the inside, there is abundant, uniform light.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The space is open and fluid, offering optimal flexibility.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The lighting effect produced by the tall gaps that appear to float in space is truly beautiful.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

The volumes are independent and geometrically free, giving the whole a wonderfully poetic feel.

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Click for larger image

Mediatheque d’Anzin by Dominique Coulon and Associes

Click for larger image


See also:

.

Library in Münster
by Zauberscho[e]n
Library for Birmingham
by Mecanoo
Library in Colombia by
Javeriana University students