Hasta La Ideas

This wooden nursery and elementary school complex in Lyon by French architects Tectoniques has hilly rooftops carpeted with plants that feature walkways for students to explore (+ slideshow).

Tectoniques built the two schools on a sloping site opposite a wooded parkland in the northern city suburb of Rillieux-la-Pape.

The two- and three-storey buildings were designed with V-shaped plans. The nursery school frames a garden, while the elementary school wraps around a narrow courtyard.

In certain places the plant-covered rooftops appear to emerge from the ground, created a series of slopes and pathways that children are encouraged to investigate.

“One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature,” said the architects. “The structures in keeping with their surroundings are, at times, allowing nature to more or less literally to get the upper hand.”

“The general profile is uniformly and deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise the excavation and foundation work,” they added.

The two schools operate independently, but share some facilities. A communal entrance provides a place for parents to congregate before and after school, and is linked to the village by a pedestrian pathway.

Timber cladding covers most of the building’s interior and exterior, but is interspersed with a few yellow-painted panels on the walls and ceilings.

Spacious corridors run between classrooms and feature floor-to-ceiling windows to increase natural light.

A vegetable garden grows on the perimeter of the school, plus a new gymnasium will be added to the site next year.

Another project we’ve featured by Tectoniques is a black townhouse elsewhere in Lyon.

Other schools completed recently include a glazed art and music academy in Latvia and a high school in Germany with a spotty concrete ceiling. See more schools »

Photography is by Renaud Araud and the architects.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Paul Chevallier School in Rillieux-la-Pape

The Paul Chevallier school complex is situated in Rillieux-la-Pape, a northern suburb of Lyon. At 5,034 m2, it is an unusually large project; and this indicates the growing attractiveness of the area. The complex currently comprises a nursery school and an elementary school. In 2014, a gym will be added, which will also be available for community activities. The site occupies an entire block, close to the centre of the district. The two schools are functionally and administratively autonomous. While following on from each other, they make up a continuum, in an overall composition.

They are made up of rectangular modules in “V” formations enclosing internal spaces which, in the case of the nursery school, is a garden, and, in that of the elementary school, a patio. The design takes account of the sloping terrain. The structures in laminated KLH® panels have imposing planted-out roofs with overhangs. Lending its tone to the entire project, this extra “façade” represents the lyrical nature of the relationship between nature and architecture, in a Japanese-inspired atmosphere. It is accessible and visible from inside the buildings via the volumes of the first floor, part of which rises up over the roof and seems to float over this hanging garden.

Integration into the urban mosaic

The site is surrounded by disparate constructed forms that illustrate the historical development of the area. The old village stretches out along the Route de Strasbourg, and on the southern side there is a mix of apartment blocks and private housing developments. Dense, diverse plant life accompanies and modifies this urban environment. Across from the site is the wooded Brosset park, with, on its perimeter, the Maison des Familles, the Centre Social and the Ecole de Musique, whose functions are complementary to those of the schools.

The nursery school occupies a calm, sheltered position in a garden at the heart of the site, with an area of vegetation close to a château and some villas. The elementary school has a façade that gives onto Rue Salignat. The future gym will follow the alignment of the street. A pedestrian pathway leads to the entrance, organising the area where the parents congregate, and linking the schools to the village, as a prolongation to the existing axes of communication. It is lined by the structures themselves, thus leaving room for the playgrounds and gardens on the southern side.

Reconciling architecture and nature

One of the project’s major characteristics is the relationship it establishes between architecture and nature. The structures are in keeping with their surroundings, at times allowing nature, more or less literally, to “get the upper hand”. The general profile is uniformly, deliberately low, harmonising with the slope in such a way as to minimise excavation and foundation work. The project harmonises vegetation on the upper and lower levels. The volumes in wood are separated by the broad, planted-out roofs, with their waves of colour.

The inclined roof planes and broad overhangs energise the silhouette, and attenuate the massiveness of the blocks. This schema is an encouragement to strolling and dallying. It projects an impression of insouciance that is ideally suited to the world of children. From the inside, nature is framed by the large windows of the classrooms, and its close proximity makes it an element of the children’s educational needs. The landscapers have provided places of discovery and experimentation. There is a vegetable garden beside Rue Salignat, and a discovery path on the way to the canteen in the northern wing of the nursery school. There are also walkways on the roofs, which introduce the children to another ambiance.

Poetry and surprise

The two schools are unified by their broad, pleated roofs, the nursery school being lower down on the slope. The ground plan is simple, so that the children can easily find their way around. The geometry, and notably the passageways, contrast with the spatial intensity. The inner perspectives are telescoped or attenuated, depending on whether the walls are convex or concave. Views onto the outside world, and superimposed spaces, are always different, always new. There are multiple, changing, irregular facets. No two façades are the same.

The complex is labile, asymmetrical, surprising. In terms of organisation, the classrooms are rectangular, and can take thirty children comfortably. The collective spaces (library, concourse, music and computing rooms) stand out, in part, above the roofs. Large windows, sheltered by the roof projections and sunshades, open onto the playgrounds on the southern side. And the nursery school also receives natural light from the north. Access to the nursery school classrooms is through cloakrooms, via yellow perforated metal entry points that indicate a passage from one world to another.

The toilets and dormitories are shared by two classrooms, and there is customised furniture in three-ply spruce, from the cloakrooms to the cupboards in the classrooms. The passageways have their own character, and are the project’s main axes. The galleries, main entrance, hall, covered playground, corridors and terraces are carefully designed, spacious, with natural lighting, for easy occupation.

Wood in depth

Wood is a pre-eminent presence. Tectoniques generally uses wood frames for its school projects, but in this case there are wood panels throughout, for the walls, façades and floors. They are left exposed on the inside surfaces, giving solidity and depth to the walls and partitions. This impression of mass and weight creates an impression that is unusual for construction in wood, which by its very nature is light.

Apart from the foundations, slabs, ground floor and stairwells, everything is in wood, including the lift shaft. The outer aspect of the complex is characterised by overhangs that are 2.4 m long and 0.18 m deep. Structurally, the roof is made of KLH® panels, as mentioned above, while the upper storey has cavity floors in prefabricated laminates between OSB planking on dry slabs, with soft coverings.

From preparation (long) to implementation (short)

The design-construction process is similar to certain techniques that have been used in Austria. Industrially-produced panels and more elaborate components are used for on-site dry assembly. This is one of the most ambitious project of its kind to be implemented in France, using a constructional approach that is one of Tectoniques’ specialities.

Area: 6,150 m2
Cost: €10.5 million
Client: Muncipality of Rillieux-la-Pape
Architects and surveyors: Tectoniques
Engineers: BPR Ingénierie Générale, Arborescence Structures Bois, Indiggo Environnement
Environmental approach: wood burning boiler, ground-coupled heat exchanger, wood frame, KLH panels, reutilisation of rainwater, solar-heated water for sanitary use

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by Tectoniques appeared first on Dezeen.

Offset gabled volumes form a new classroom and play area at this infant school in Oxfordshire, England, by local firm Jessop and Cook Architects (+ slideshow).

Jessop and Cook Architects designed the adjoining buildings with the same profile, but shifted the timber play area sideways from the brick classroom.

“The different materials for the covered external canopy help create a warm friendly feel to the place and help define the spaces,” project architect Dan Wadsworth told Dezeen. “We didn’t want to just tack on a canopy and felt continuing to use brick would be too heavy and overbearing.”

Covered in cedar shingles on the outside and clad with stained planks of the same wood inside, the timber structure provides a sheltered outdoor play area open to the playground. “We created a small enclosed secret garden for the children to play in,” said Wadsworth.

Windows in the roof let in extra light, as well as the gap at the back where the two structures misalign.

Glass doors fold back to merge the play space with the classroom, which is normally entered from a door on the other side of the timber building.

Low wooden partitions house toys and learning materials for the 30 pupils, plus break up the single room to make smaller zones for different activities.

Steps in a back corner sit below a lowered portion of ceiling to create a small performance space. Additional teaching rooms and bathrooms are located at the back of the bulding.

Other primary schools we’ve featured include a modern version of traditional Japanese schoolhouse in Tokyo and one in The Hague that snakes around its site like a crocodile.

Photographs are by Nikhilesh Haval.

See more architecture for education »
See more architecture and design in England »

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Jessop and Cook Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

This primary school and kindergarten in Zaragoza was conceived by Spanish studio Magén Arquitectos as a village of classrooms with stripy cladding and pyramid-shaped rooftops (+ slideshow).

Magén Arquitectos completed the single-storey kindergarten building in 2010 and has since added a three-storey school and an accompanying canteen and sports hall.

The three buildings wrap around a large shared playground and are united by a low-level canopy that runs along the facade of each block.

“From a distant vision, the grouping of classroom ‘houses’ around the courtyard garden refers to the idea of a village or town, as a set of independent living units that colonise a place,” said the architects.

A modular concrete construction guided the layout of the building, creating rows of classrooms with angled ceilings.

“These prefabricated elements, topped with a skylight, function as lighting and sound absorption domes, providing a more uniform distribution of light across the surface of the classroom and significantly reducing noise inside,” said the architects.

Each classroom faces towards the playground, but windows can be screened using colourful louvres in shades of red, orange and purple.

Precast concrete staircases rise up through the three-storey building, plus the facades are selectively clad with timber panels.

Magén Arquitectos is led by architect Jaime Magén. Other projects by the studio include aluminium-clad social housing and a timber and concrete building for Zaragoza City Council. See more architecture by Magén Arquitectos.

See more recent school design, including a timber-clad school in Japan by Kengo Kuma.

Photography is by Jesus Granada.

Here’s more information from Magén Arquitectos:

School Complex in Zaragozaf

The new school complex, which holds different educational levels from three to twelve years, is located in a residential area on the outskirts, southwest of Zaragoza. The absence of urban references, given the isolated location of the plot, makes to conceive the project from the inside out, based in their own internal requirements. From the educational point of view, the focus is on the pedagogical value of teaching spaces and the school is seen as a significant experience in spatial terms, related to the child’s creative world. In this sense, the project meets the sensorial relationship between children and architecture, using geometry, space, light, materiality and colour.

From the logic of the project, the proposed architecture develops the concept of unity and multiplicity, associated with the fragmentation of the program in classrooms and diverse sets of unique elements, “additive houses”, which are related by porches and patios, streets and squares, interiors and exterior. This approach also addresses the relationship between the domestic scale accompanying the child and the community dimension of public facilities in a new residential neighborhood. The study of the circulations, natural lighting and acoustics were other key factors in the development of the project.

The project fits in with the urbanistic rules of the plot and the necessary differentiation between different educational cycles without losing its unitary condition. The centre has a total of 18 elementary classrooms, 9 children, six supportings classrooms, a multipurpose room, a library, a music room, a computer room, an arts classroom, gym, kitchen, staff rooms and administrative areas. The extensive program is divided into three smaller-scale buildings, as a result also of the need to build in phases. The layout of the main volumes (kindergarten, primary school, dining hall and gym) responds to the preferred orientation to the south of the teaching spaces, a different set of common outdoor areas to access, play and relationship, and prevent volumes cast shadows on these spaces.

A continuous porch links the three buildings, connecting their different accesses, which allow the differentiation of cycles and allow the use of some areas independently. An access for students to the kindergarten, one for elementary students, one for parents and teachers and a restricted one to the office, in the dining hall. The project is adjusted to the topography by two horizontal platforms with a height of 1.70 m. between them, coinciding with the different levels of access from the street. Given the relationship between interior and exterior spaces, all the spaces takes place mainly on the ground floor, except the elementary classrooms, a longitudinal prism whose three stacked floors remain the clearly horizontal configuration of the set.

At the level between three and six years, the school contributes to the playful atmosphere that the child needs at this crucial stage for learning and skills development. The planning of the kindergarten, on the south side of the plot, is based in some ideas about setting up an environment specifically designed for the child, as the first level of socialisation, advanced by Maria Montessori in the early twentieth century, in their first “Case dei Bambini” (Children’s House). This idea of the classroom as a home that protects and shelters, refers to the anthropological origins of the room -the cabin- and is manifested in truncated-pyramidal pitched roofs over square classrooms. Each group of children inhabit a classroom-or “house” -. All are equal in elementary geometry, while different, by their position, orientation, location of the skylight, colour and relationship to the rest.

The classrooms are oriented to the south to ensure natural lighting and are grouped around the common outdoor space for games and outdoor activities. A cantilever, which runs around the perimeter of this space, protects from the sun and rain. From a distant vision, the grouping of classrooms, “houses” around the courtyard garden refers to the idea of village or town, as a set of independent living units that colonise a place.

From the inside, these prefabricated elements, topped with a skylight, function as lighting and sound absorption domes, providing a more uniform distribution of light across the surface of the classroom and significantly reducing noise inside. The increased height also improves thermal conditions in summer, while the underfloor heating system ensures comfort in winter. The child classroom setting, a key element in a building of this type, provides a direct correlation between this essential use and an identifiable form, such as spatial unit, structural and constructive. The building is based on a space module of 7.20 x 7.20 x 3.60 m., which matches the dimensions of the room and define its structure, functional organisation and its formal configuration. The other school spaces are configured through the subdivision and/or addition of these modules, creating airy and flexible interiors that would allow future expansion or reform actions. The modular skylight covered-up makes an identifiable profile, a fifth facade, visible from near residential buildings.

The configuration of dining hall and gym building is based on the clear distinction between the two main rooms of different surface and height although both airy and covered with skylights, and their respective service areas: toilets, kitchen, and facilities in the case of dining, locker rooms, toilets and stores, in the gym.

The attention to scale and volumetric fragmentation is also present in the linear building intended for elementary education. In this case, the project focused teaching areas in a volume of three floors, while the rest of the program (lobby, auditorium, library) are situated on the ground floor, linked to access. This arrangement allows the independent use of these spaces outside school hours. Given the organisation of classrooms, largely dictated by the economic logic of such projects, stairs are proposed as unique spaces in contrast to the regulatory route. The position and configuration of the three cores makes them transition spaces of relationship with the outside as lookouts that provide lighting and distant views from different levels indoors.

Both the haste in construction times of the phases and budget constraints conditioned building solutions and materials, advising to choose a standardised modulation system to facilitate its implementation. The use of composite panels with natural wood siding responds to reconcile the idea of industrialisation and speed of execution with a nice finish for the child. Within a rigorous modulation, the variable arrangement of the panels, horizontal or vertical, colour and finish in places, provides certain resonances of play, appropriate to the character of the project. Latticed aluminum slats protect classrooms and sieved solar radiation outside the presence in the classroom. In contrast to the chromatic treatment abroad, the interiors are characterised by neutral and uniform finishes; the surfaces in contact with the child, floors and walls, are finished to a certain height in continuity material in each space, and those out of reach in white with sound absorbing materials. The result is a school built entirely with industrial techniques that have enabled significantly lowering costs and deadlines.

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by Magén Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

Arched openings bring students past shimmering tiled buildings and into landscaped courtyards at this grammar school near Melbourne by Australian architects McBride Charles Ryan (slideshow).

Completed at the end of 2012, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (PEGS) Senior is the second building designed by McBride Charles Ryan for the school, following a boys junior school shaped like the silhouette of three overlapping houses.

For PEGS Senior, the architects devised a figure-of-eight plan with a sequence of classrooms around the edges, a library at the centre and two courtyards within the voids. This layout allows every route to lead back to the library and also creates outdoor spaces that are protected from strong winds.

“The project is based on an infinity symbol, a shape that allows the facility to be structured around two protected courtyards,” explain the architects. “The building is an embodiment of the journey of education and the crossover between disciplines.”

Swathes of colour streak across the walls, floors and ceilings of rooms in both wings as part of a colour strategy to help students to differentiate between each department.

Glazed ceramic tiles in bands of grey and black give the school its shimmering outer skin, while the same shades are repeated across the cladding panels of the courtyard elevations. Some details are picked out in timber, including the underside of arches and louvred window screens.

The two separate courtyards contain a mixture of grassy mounds, hard landscaping, rock gardens, trees and curvy benches.

“This variety of spaces and volumes [is] not dissimilar to a walled citadel with its gardens and ceremonial arches,” add the architects.

McBride Charles Ryan completed its first building for PEGS in 2011. Other projects by the firm include Klein Bottle House, a residence with origami-like facets and folds.

See more schools on Dezeen, including a stark concrete secondary school in Portugal and a gabled extension to a boarding school in England.

Photography is by John Gollings, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Here’s some more information from McBride Charles Ryan:

The Infinity Centre, Keilor East

The Infinity Centre, the new campus for Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School senior students, is derived from the initial idea that the library, a learning hub, is central to the school. We also wanted a building that offered protection from a windswept site and signified the merging of two schools.

Radiating out from the library, along the length of the form, are specialist precincts and a variety of learning spaces. Each wing then returns to link up, forming cloisters and the resulting plan of an infinity symbol. Being structured around two protected courtyards has enhanced the learning space’s access to light, ventilation and view.

Each wing has its own qualities, different from each other and yet seamlessly connected to the next. In this way the building acts as an embodiment of the journey of education, with less distinction of any prescribed boundaries between disciplines. The colour strategy reinforces the identity of the academic disciplines, universally enhanced by the richness of natural materials, such as locally recycled timber. Planning allows the building’s circulation to constantly return to the library at its heart, and in this way is physically and experientially in parallel with the educational ethos of the school.

This variety of spaces and volumes, not dissimilar to a walled citadel with its gardens and ceremonial arches, are encased within a unifying skin. The outer wall of the building is clad with glazed bricks, a material that offers protection, beauty, gravitas, and imbues the impressive form with a sense of permanence. The banded brickwork pattern aids in reading the shape of the building, adding complexity and delight as the sun catches the silver through the day.

Project team: Rob McBride, Debbie Ryan, Andrew Hayne, Drew Williamson, Qianyi Lim, Peter Ryan, Stephan Bekhor, Anthony Parker, Amelia Borg, Natasha Maben, Benedikt Josef, Alan Ting, Luke Waldron, Jacqui Robbins, Daniel Griffin, Seung Hyuk Choi, Angela Woda
Area: 8000 m2

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Senior by McBride Charles Ryan appeared first on Dezeen.

Bold blocks of colour at ground level contrast with the white upper storeys of this school in Mallorca by Spanish architects RipollTizon (+ slideshow).

The Binissalem School Complex combines both a primary and a secondary school and comprises a single building made up of overlapping volumes and recessed openings.

RipollTizon explains that the building was designed to reference the different scales of its neighbours: “From the beginning, our intent was to develop the project as a dialogue, on different scales, between the school and its surroundings.”

The colourful stripes were generated using photographs of children wearing bright clothing. “The intention of using colour in some parts of the facade is to create a background for the children,” the architects told Dezeen. “Their colourful clothing and movement will blend with the facade.”

The school is laid out on an L-shaped plan with three storeys. This creates long walls along the edge of an adjacent road but opens the building out to playgrounds at the rear.

Classrooms are arranged in tiers so that multi-purpose spaces are located nearest to the playground and can be utilised for non-school events.

A long ramp also leads up from this area to a roof terrace with a view out towards the mountains.

The main entrance is on the north-west corner, where the walls step back to frame a small courtyard.

RipollTizon is led by architects Pep Ripoll and Juan Miguel Tizón. The studio also recently completed a family house at the end of a traditional row.

Other newly completed school buildings include a stark concrete extension to a school in Portugal and a UK school built with brick, aluminium and timber.

See more schools on Dezeen »

Photography is by José Hevia.

Here’s a project description from Ripolltizon:

Binissalem School Complex by RipollTizon

The School Complex (provides primary and secondary school levels) is located in the outskirts of Binnisalem urban fabric. The plot is located along a suburban road named “Camí de Pedaç” on which the urban planning has concentrated a heterogeneous mix of typologies, including diverse row houses, detached blocks and urban facilities.

From the beginning, our intent was to develop the project as a dialogue, on different scales, between the school and its surroundings. On the one hand, the new school building faces the road with a fragmented volume and a broken skyline that enhances perspective effects and scale control in relation to the singularities of the unorganized neighborhood volumes. On the other hand, towards interior of the plot that faces the countryside, the building embraces the sport ground areas creating a facade with bigger scale elements and more compact massing. Moreover, the building areas used only for teaching were clearly separated from those that can be used also for non-school events, creating different building parts and scales that were properly arranged into the complex.

A set back on the facade to the road creates the main access space, an open plaza in the building corner, that generates the circulations and arranges the different functions. The functional packages are grouped in different levels with the intention to reduce the building coverage surface and create a plot area where playgrounds, sport grounds and future extensions can be located.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

An exterior ramp connects the school grounds to an elevated plaza that is created in the roof of part of the ground-floor. From this roof plaza is also possible to enjoy the excellent views of Binissalem skyline and its surrounding mountains.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Architects: Pep Ripoll – Juan Miguel Tizón
Collaborators: Xisco Sevilla (architect)
Quantity Surveyor: Toni Arqué

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

IBISEC Collaborators: Juan Vanrell (architect IBISEC)
José Juan Amengual (quantity surveyor IBISEC)
Structural Engineer: Jorge Martín
Building Services E.: TIIS Ingeniería

Above: second floor plan – click above for larger image

Client: Institut d’Infraestructures i Serveis Educatius i Cultural (IBISEC)
Contractors: PROINOSA
Project Area: 3.166 sqm
Budget: 2.060.064 EUR

Above: section – click above for larger image

Start of Design: 2005
Year of Completion: 2011
Location: Camí de Pedaç – Binissalem. Mallorca. Spain

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by RipollTizon appeared first on Dezeen.