An invisible man and woman are the stars of the photoshoot for this renovated apartment in Paris by French designer Paul Coudamy (+ slideshow).
After completing Studio Nuctale, Paul Coudamy teamed up with photographer Benjamin Boccas to construct a fantasy scenario where the two residents of the apartment are completely invisible and lounge around wearing suits.
“Pictures can more powerful without personified people,” Coudamy told Dezeen. “It adds a mystery to the strange lighting sculpture and also gives more impact on the project, as the eye is not attracted by an facial expression.”
Located in the Buttes-aux-Cailles neighbourhood, the apartment has an area of just 35 square metres, so the designer had to develop an interior that makes the most of space.
He used CNC-milled plywood to assemble a compact timber module on one side of the space, which accommodates a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and breakfast counter.
“All the functions of this small apartment have been concentrated to free up space in the living room,” Coudamy told Dezeen. “I worked in three dimensions rather than in plan to adapt all the volumes and maximise storage.”
The apartment is located on the ground floor of the building and suffered from poor natural light, so a five-metre-long lighting fixture was added to distribute light across the interior.
Described by the designer as a “geometric cloud”, the piece is constructed from 15 light sources and 76 frosted glass triangles, which are held together by hinges and rivets to allow the structure to be moulded into different configurations.
“I decided to to bring the clouds and sun inside,” said Coudamy. “A user can adapt the height and shape of this hanging sculpture to provide an exceptional feeling and fully adjustable and comfortable lighting”.
“Nuctale,” the contraction of Nuage Fractal, is a tiny 35 m2 space lit by a monumental 5m long light: a disproportional geometrical cloud that provides a unique backdrop to this studio in the Buttes-aux-Cailles. As always, Paul Coudamy produces a maximum effect with minimal space and materials.
The light structure comprises 15 sources and 76 frosted acrylic triangles, the relief of the cloud is versatile enough to individualise thanks to a set of 206 hinges and 824 rivets. An architect-designed construction inspired by sailing navigation, but conceived with the skill of an artisan creating a bespoke design. It perfectly sums up this young atypical agency that designs and manufactures places in one sweep. The furniture and storage have also been designed and produced in digitally cut plywood in order to optimise this small space. A lesson in terms of architecture, where the difficulty of the means is pushed to the limit.
French architects RAUM have arranged a cluster of holiday apartments in Brittany around terraces that are connected by small alleys (+ slideshows).
The clients for the project were a couple who asked RAUM to create two holiday homes with adjoining studio flats on the Quiberon peninsula, which can be rented by one or more families.
The architects designed the buildings around a series of outdoor spaces, linked by passages that can be transformed from public to private areas by closing gates.
Interiors are given a minimal treatment to focus attention on the terraces, and all of the ground floor living rooms feature sliding doors that open onto the decking outside.
A small building in the southwest corner of the site houses one of the studio flats, while another is located above the garage.
Wooden flooring is used throughout the interiors and also creates a connection with the external decking.
La marque BMW déjà présente dans le domaine de la photographie (Paris Photo, Rencontres d’Arles…), s’est alliée à Eric Tabuchi pour La Route du Photographe. A cette occasion, il a créé une série de photos inédites d’espaces péri-urbains vides de toute présence humaine, qui retrace son parcours du 16 au 25 septembre.
La Route du Photographe invitait les internautes à participer et à suivre Eric Tabuchi, pas à pas sur Facebook et via Google Maps, pendant 10 jours sur 4 000 km à travers la France, pour réaliser une série de photos de son road trip, exposées en ligne et au Brand Store BMW George V à Paris en octobre. Pour en savoir plus ici.
Reclaimed ceramic tiles decorate the recesses of this long white pavilion, which stretches across a redesigned town square in Provence by French architecture studio Comac (+ slideshow).
Marseille-based Comac designed the pavilion as part of a town centre redevelopment in Gignac la Nerthe, which included a new plaza, a children’s playground, a garden and the renovation of an existing stone barn.
Hollow sections in the volume of the long pavilion offer four sheltered areas, each lined with the colourful tiles that were found on the site.
One is intersected by a canal and fountain, while two others contain benches and tiered seating that create small open-air theatres.
At night, the tiles are illuminated by lights set at the pavilion’s base.
“The main goal was to unify three deserted plots into a whole public square connected with the actual city centre,” said the architects. “The entire urban project is creating several intimate spaces and foster social gatherings and activities.”
The old stone barn was restored to “leave a historical trace in the middle of the city”, while regional trees and flowers were planted in the botanical garden that surround the canal.
An old Roman City from the 1st century, Gignac la Nerthe is a city from the Provence region, 20km from Marseille. In the late 1960s, the city developed alongside the first wave of North African immigration and in the 1980s with the people moving from some of Marseille’s roughest neighbourhoods. Nowadays, the city has been populated by low cost individual housing that didn’t leave any room for public space. The city centre’s new square and pavilion delivers a two-level proposal: first an urban evolution and then a social answer.
The main goal is to unify three deserted plots into a whole public square connected with the actual city centre, composed of the town hall main square, the church, an old barn, a village house, an old wash house and the boulevard Perrier.
First of all, the houses had to be demolished to create a direct connection with the town hall square and the deserted plots. The old barn was renovated to leave a historical trace in the middle of the city. By extending the axis created by the municipality’s building, an architectural element is set up on one hand to structure the public space and on the other hand to organise some function needed in such a space.
In the continuation of the actual town hall’s square, the entrance of the project is defined by the new pavilion and the renovated old barn.
The long building (70 meters) is creating a mineral square followed by a botanical garden, old Provencal plants and flowers are growing along the square. On the other side of the pavilion, a Provencal garden is defined by 9 trees and a water canal.
The pavilion is hosting activities and functions, beginning by the children area: a small theatre and a playground, the fountain, toilets, a covered space for party, open air lunches and at the end an open air theatre for projection, children shows or movies shows.
A modern Provencal approach: the ceramic coloured pattern comes from a piece of ceramic founds on the site, as a testimony to the region’s heritage.
The entire urban project is creating several intimate spaces and foster social gatherings and activities. It is a powerful tool to help the municipality realise its social policy goals towards the citizens of Gignac la Nerthe.
Location: Marseille – Gignac la Nerthe Program: Pavilion, main square, botanic garden, kids playground, intimate garden, open air theatre, technical room, old wash house Surface: 3000 square metres
Client: City of Gignac la Nerthe Budget: €750,000 End of construction: July 2013 Building period: 10 months
Architect: Comac Landscape architect: Paul Petel Engineer: SLH – Franck Penel Building firms: DM construction, Paysages mediterraneens Urban furniture: Cyria
Balconies shaped like greenhouses project from the facades of these apartment blocks in Nantes by French studio Block Architects (+ slideshow).
The trio of seven-storey concrete buildings form a new social housing complex, designed by Block Architects for the La Pelousière area of Nantes, western France.
Constructed from aluminium and glass, the balconies protrude from the west and east elevations of the structures and feature gabled profiles modelled on the prototypical shape of a shed or barn.
“The general built shape is taken from agricultural typology that existed in the history of the site, a barn at the scale of the landscape,” explained the architects. “The project searches to capture this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material.”
Some of the balconies are surrounded by a row of pine slats, creating a small fence that offers some privacy for residents.
“A domestic scale is taken from the suburban context close by and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden,” the architects added.
The apartments were designed so that each has windows on two different sides of the building, allowing for increased light and ventilation.
Folding glass doors lead out to the balconies, which can also be covered using roll-back fabric awnings.
Interior photography is by Stéphane Chalmeau. Exterior photography is by Nicolas Pineau.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Pradenn Social Housing
Simple and compact
The brief stands for 89 socials housings, 51 in rental and 38 in accession. The site is in an important development area of the Great Nantes called la Pelousière. The project tries to combine density, mixed-use and comfort for the inhabitants.
The project is inserted and interacting with its context. A gradation between public and private has been organised through built and landscaped sequences : access ramp, public space, parking on the public space or underneath the buildings, pedestrian path, halls, housings and loggias.
The general built shape comes from an agricultural typology, that existed in the site history, a barn at the scale of the landscape. The project searches to catch this materiality of the shed, through the use of an industrial cladding material. This simple and efficient shape also drives the fiction of a large ‘country house’.
Then, a domestic scale is taken from the close by suburban context and integrated by the addition of wood fences and greenhouses borrowed from the garden. This sample, as a copy / paste process, reminds to the collective the sums of individuals, and shows the residential and individual dimension in a collective building that tries to escape from its usual expression.
The three buildings are ‘placed’ on a concrete base, raised from the floor. The space in between is either open, where the parking is, or flanked by vegetated slopes in a continuity of the central plaza, integrating the buildings.
The whole project is a reinterpreted sample of the neighbourhood environment, put at the scale of building.
Thus the housings have mainly double exposure, from one side to another or in an angle. Every spaces have been studied to have exterior views and daylight. The greenhouses and their balconies are present in most of the housings, providing a large outside space.
The building has a structural principal of concrete walls in between the housings, crossing from one side to another. Being altogether compact and insulated from the outside, the building reaches the performance of the BBC-Effinergie label.
L’artiste argentin Leandro Erlich a encore frappé avec cette installation présentant une chambre arrachée d’un immeuble et suspendue dans les airs au dessus de la ville. Accessible par une échelle, son oeuvre intitulée “Monte-meubles – L’ultime déménagement” a été créée pour le festival d’art Le Voyage à Nantes.
Copper-clad panels behind the glazed facade of this gymnasium by French firm LAN Architecture produce tinted reflections of the surrounding buildings (+ slideshow).
Paris studio LAN Architecture was also responsible for redeveloping the surrounding historic central square of Chelles, France, where the introduction of the L-shaped gymnasium alters the route between a park and the existing buildings.
“The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall,” the architects point out. “In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey.”
Full-height glass panels covering the gymnasium’s facade create refracted reflections that reduce the visual impact of the monolithic form and help to integrate it into its milieu.
Avoiding any typical sporting references on the building’s exterior, the architects instead created “a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.”
Behind the glass, timber panels clad externally in copper add depth and warmth to the reflections, while helping to dampen echoes inside the sports hall.
The panels also act as sunscreens, allowing daylight to filter through the staccato gaps along their top edges. When the sports hall is illuminated at night, light emanates from this upper section.
The smaller end of the L-shaped building houses offices, logistics, service spaces and smaller activity rooms with views into the main hall.
The design of the gymnasium and the square of central Chelles was an opportunity to use an architectural project to address urban issues that have been left aside in past developments.
The plot is indeed in a central position between the Park of Remembrance Emile Fouchard, the town hall, the Weczerka high school and the centre for contemporary art “les églises”: a highly heterogeneous environment where all the symbols and powers of the city (the church, State, culture, education and sports) are concentrated.
All these components, in this case, seem more juxtaposed than actually ordered, despite the delicate intervention by Marc Barani and Martin Szekely transforming the two churches into a center of contemporary art.
The aim of this project is to replay this rescheduling, elevating it into the category of an agora. The space, therefore, was in need of a strategic, volumetric insertion and an idea, contributing to the completion of the history and a new perception of the whole.
Urban role of the new building
Based on this observation, we considered the project as an operation of urban reassembly in which the gym and esplanade play the role of articulation. We relied on a detailed analysis of the operation, sequences and the scales of the various components.
The orthogonal footprint of the building is parallel to the facades of the high school and the town hall. In this way, it helps to redefine and enhance urban spaces as well as to connect the park to the church through a journey. These public spaces, the piazza and the new pedestrian street, are drawn in a conventional manner: regular, surrounded and defined by buildings. An urban object, a “catalyst” of views.
Once the volumes were constructed, the challenge of the architectural project has resided in the renewal of the traditional vocabulary of the gym: very often, we deal with an opaque box, blind and deaf to the context in which it occurs.
Here, we had to escape from the imagery related to sports facilities to implement an object which “lets us see” a fragmenting urban kaleidoscope, diffracting and reflecting the image of the surrounding buildings in order to respond with a new, more sensitive vision.
To this end, the facade is composed of two layers, the first (the glass) reflecting and letting in light, and the second (the copper), coloring and magnifying the reflection, providing protection from glass impacts.
While the simple shape and the orthogonal location of the building allows to order spaces, the facades create an ambiguity emptying the building of its materiality, making it disappear. The whole gives an impression of lightness and magic. At night, the game is reversed.
The gym, with its style and footprint, aims to be the symbol of a new vision of the city.
Once the urban strategy and the treatment of the facades were defined, the simplicity of the volumes allowed to turn the spatial organization of the gym into an efficient and functional area.
The technical system used for the envelope is simple: a steel structure, the bottom of the glass facades made of a concrete wall insulated by an indoor copper cladding. This double skin provides an ideal sound insulation. The copper, plated on timber, absorbs noise and reduces resonance in high volume areas such as multisport halls. The realization of this project is also a good example of an eco-construction. A project based on the logic of eco-construction
Ranked at the Very High Energy Performance (THPE) level, the building ensures a high level of comfort thanks to the inertia of its insulated concrete walls that contribute to cooling in summer and limited heat loss in winter. It is reinforced by the presence of night ventilation in the spaces. The system used consists of a power plant processing dual-flow air recovering energy from exhaust air. Each façade is equipped with a glazing area of 2.28 m2, STADIP 44.2 “securit” type, on the external side and tempered glass (8 mm), with a 14mm argon heat-resistant blade.
Heating The site is directly connected to the city’s geothermal heat network. A heating programmer prior to space occupancy is also implemented. The heat distribution ensures the needs of hot water and heating the gym, an extension, changing rooms and circulation spaces.
Electricity
Thirty-two photovoltaic modules with an output of 7360 Watts, or 6600 VA for resale to EDF, have been installed.
Water management Outside, the rainwater recovery system works together with the green roof. It supplies the gymnasium’s sanitary areas and the surrounding greenery.
The building receives natural light through large windows on the curtain wall and roof. It is emphasized by the external presence of a LED light recessed floor. The access points are marked by candelabra. Presence detectors are being used in all interiors, except for the great hall, optimizing power management based on attendance.
Programme: Gymnasium and redesign of the Town Hall square Client: City of Chelles Location: Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, Chelles (77) Budget: Gymnasium: € 4,34 M. excl. VAT, Esplanade € 967,000 excl. VAT. Project area: Gymnasium 2 322 m², Esplanade 2,857 m² Completion: Gymnasium: January 2012 Esplanade: October 2012 Team: LAN Architecture (lead architect), BETEM (TCE), Isabelle Hurpy (HEQ)
Apartments appear to be stacked up like boxes at this concrete housing block in Paris by French studio RH+ Architecture (+ slideshow).
Named Plein Soleil, the building was designed by RH+ Architecture with a 36-metre-long south-facing facade that features dozens of sunny balconies with sliding glass screens.
These loggia spaces also have a second function; they create a thermal buffer that allows daylight to penetrate the apartments whilst providing an insulating boundary against cold outdoor temperatures.
“The depth of these loggias allows tables and chairs to enjoy the sun,” said the architects. “It is both a balcony and a winter garden.”
Located in the north of Paris, the seven-storey building contains a total of 28 apartments in its upper levels, as well as a crèche on the ground floor and a car park in the basement.
The volume of the structure is intentionally staggered to relate to the heights of surrounding buildings, as well as to allow sunlight to reach the crèche garden at the rear of the building.
A mixture of studio flats and apartments of one, three and four bedrooms are located over six storeys. Many come with double-height living rooms and some feature decked terraces rather than balconies.
Communal corridors have been positioned along the edges of the building so that they can benefit from natural light.
Here’s a more detailed project description from the architects:
Plein Soleil
Location in the site
The situation of the plot at number 16 Rue Riquet is exceptional: largely visible from the corner of Avenue de Flandre, it is very close to the Bassin de la Villette and has a length of 36 metres of frontage facing south with a depth varying from 18 to 22 metres. The building at the corner of Avenue de Flandre constructed at right angles as well as the small buildings with adjoining ground floors gives to the western corner of the plot a very valuable “faubourg” touch.
On the other side of the same street, the large gable of number 14 allows the new building to be built upon. The whole of these characteristics bear a rich urban potential. Our project aims at making the most of it in the setting up and design of the new building.
1. The Program
The private owner has a vacant land of 700 square metres located rue Riquet in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, near le Bassin de la Villette and Avenue de Flandre. He has decided to build 28 free rental units with a crèche on the ground floor (run by the association “ABC childcare”).
Some options have come out as obvious:
» To develop an environmental approach in the first stage of the design, with the integration of engineering consultants specialised in “High Environmental Quality”, RFR Elements » To make the most of the linear facade » To gradually move west back from the neighbouring building and create views for the new building » To create a garden at the bottom of the plot and a way to lead to the block of flats from the rear on the north side
The objectives of the operation
The owner together with his project delegate AURIS has set the following targets:
» To get a building project both robust and lasting with an architectural signature » To optimise the building capacity in order to receive the bonus floor area ratio by getting the BBC Label with HQE certification
To create a building matching the values of project management particularly on the following aspects: aesthetics and urban integration, quality and sustainability.
To respect the following constraints:
» To create business premises on the ground floor to become later a crèche run by an association. » To optimise the design of the building in order to reduce operating costs and thus the costs charged to tenants. » To optimise maintenance costs. » To reduce energy consumption. » To offer a balanced distribution of typologies.
Envelope and environmental qualities
To secure a thermally efficient project, losses should be minimised. The thermal performance of the envelope has been obtained by the systematic elimination of thermal bridges.
That has been done by:
» The choice of insulation from the outside (material stands before the insulation slab nose). » The use of thermal break on the south side to detach the thermal structure at the front of the inner facade (unheated part) from the inside of the flats. » The choice of a console on the north side meant to carry for a limited period the floor of the corridors.
The south facade is organised on a principle of loggia. The thermal limit is located at the level of the 30% opaque and double-glazed very efficient inner facade. The exterior sliding window pane is a simple, slightly printed glazing for the bedrooms and transparent for the living-rooms. In winter and at the beginning/end of the mid-season that is to say during the heating period which usually runs from mid-October to mid-March, these loggias play the role of a buffer space whose function from a thermal point of view can be developed in three ways:
» function of protection of the inner glazing against the effects of the wind, which result in increased heat transfer and infiltration of cold air, » function of heat buildup when the weather is sunny and the loggia exposed to direct sunlight, the temperature is then higher than the outside temperature, » function of preheating the fresh air, the air intakes for mechanical ventilation being placed outside the rooms and lounges thus the loggia (appropriate as far as energy and thermal comfort are concerned).
As winning project of the call for low consumption building projects (BBC) from ADEME 2010, and having obtained the certification Cerqual H & E profil A, we have offered a philosophy of clean environmental approach. The project is part of a plot of high quality characterised by a significant linear facing south. Before the sketch work was carried out, the design team has focused on environmental issues so in our answer the issue is intimately linked to the architectural offer and rooted in fundamental elements of the quality of life.
Spatial organisation and environmental qualities
As far as the ground plan and spatial organisation are concerned, the qualities of the project are obvious: all flats are through and the bathrooms get daylight. What’s more, each flat opens widely on to the south side to capture the most of the sun.
The inner environmental qualities of our project consist in:
» A supply of free sun on the southern facade » Possibility of a through ventilation in summer, appropriate to refresh the flats at night and thus lob the peaks of heat » These qualities have a large impact on comfort but also on energy consumption: less heating needed in winter and in summer, no discomfort which would likely lead to the use of side air conditioners, disastrous in terms of energy and environment
We should also mention as highly appropriate from an environmental point of view the fact that the parts in common are mostly on the outside of the buildings: this will reduce heating consumption, artificial lighting and thus the costs.
2. The Building’s Setting in Terms of Sunshine
Making the most of the south facade can be achieved through the design of a thermal facade together with private outdoor spaces that increase the comfort and quality of the flats.
A thermal southern facade: the concept of loggia favours both summer and winter comfort. The loggia is a buffer zone consisting in two sliding glass walls that can open and close according to the variations of temperature.
This concept provides several functions:
» A function of protection: heat losses are reduced. » A supply of free heating by the sun: that heat is absorbed by the floor and the walls and released at night. » Given the 1.700 hours of sunshine per year, this supply is particularly significant in terms of energy savings. » The function of preheating fresh air, provided by controlled mechanical ventilation.
Provide comfort of use
This “thick” facade consisting in loggias running outside along the living rooms and the bedrooms provide a nice patio area. The depth of these loggias allows tables and chairs to enjoy the sun. As extensions of the living rooms some of the loggias have clear glass bays on two levels. This extra space can be opened or closed depending on the sunlight. It is both a balcony and a winter garden. As extensions of the bedrooms loggias have clear glass bays in the foreground and screened glass bays over the street. This treatment filters views and sunshine for more privacy.
3. Integrating the Project in the Context
West terraces – neighbouring buildings at number 18 rue Riquet have an identity of their own: they form a complex with a very “faubourg” touch in the type and height of the buildings and the imbrication of the plots.
It appeared to us that in many ways there was a strong connection between the project and this complex:
» There must be respect in the way the buildings are linked, the project must not crush the existing buildings nor pour too much shade on them » The project must offer flats widely opened on the outside with views to the west (good position, facing multiple directions). » Sunlight should reach the garden at the bottom of the plot.
For all these reasons we opted for gradually decreasing terraces on its western side. The terraces would run from west to east but also from south to north which allows light to reach the bottom of the plot. The choice of terraces and vegetal roofs make it even more pleasant for future residents and the neighbourhood.
Compliance with the local urbanism plan
Consistent with Parisian architecture and in accordance with the Local Urbanism Plan, the project suggests marking a base to ground floor by the building of a glass facade running all the imposed 3.20 metres of height. The two last levels stand back in conformity with the templates, so that the attic stands out. The yard created at the north east corner of the plot as an extension of the existing adjoining courtyards is there to create crossing flats.
4. Create Outdoor Space to Benefit Everybody
The project offers several types of outdoor spaces: A large courtyard with a real garden for the crèche on the ground floor. Keeping in mind the fact that the flat is located in a plant growing area, the two of them form a large open space of pleasant proportions: 150 square metres.
This creates a vegetal strip of land which can be enjoyed not only from the ground floor but also from the corridors of distribution and the west terraces. These buildings have an open outlook and leave perspectives free. And finally this garden is a valuable space for the buildings close to the imbricate plots.
As an extension of an already existing adjoining yard, a yard in the corner allows the creation of crossing flats and on a city scale to keep open spaces designed to let the housing block breathe.
Each flat except for the studios overlooking the courtyard owns a private outdoor loggia. The western corner flats even have a terrace facing southwest.
All flats are at least all-through flats. Those located on the western side face south-west and north. There is a flat on the ground floor with a 35 square metre terrace facing west. Except for the two rooms overlooking the courtyard, they all have private outdoor space. The ceilings are 2.50 metre high and on the west side living rooms have partial double heights(+ 1 metre). Typologies follow that pattern: seven studios, eight one-bedroom flats, five three-room flats, eight four-room flats.
Après la vidéo d’Entertainment de Phoenix à Versailles, La Blogothèque nous offre une vidéo de 20 minutes réalisée par Colin Solal Cardo dans le cadre des Take Away Show, proposant ainsi de découvrir 4 morceaux du groupe joués en live dans des lieux insolites, à l’image de « Bourgeois » tournée dans un jet en plein vol.
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.
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.
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.
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