School – Nanteuil-lès-Meaux, France

60 km east of Paris, the town of Nanteuil-lès-Meaux, 5000 inhabitants, looks out over the Marne river valley.

Designed to hold 900 students, this junior high school is situated alongside a highway in a commercial zone, typical of the access routes into French suburban towns. The site slopes down towards the Marne. This natural condition is exploited by dividing the programme into two parallel volumes arranged perpendicular to the slope, on either side of the recreation courtyard. The roof of the lower volume is level with the ground floor of the upper volume, which fronts the highway. The school’s animated and colourful façade both affirms and valorises the educational programme within the commercial district, while sheltering the courtyard from the noise and pollution of the passing traffic. At the entrance to the school, under a cantilevered volume, the landscaped axis of the parking lot penetrates the principal building. Within, the axis takes the form of an interior street, with the various programmes distributed on either side. On the upper floors, above the science labs and the administration offices, the art studios open onto the highway, crowning the building and distinguishing it by their colour. Set back from these forms, the general education classrooms benefit from the views over the valley. In the lower building, the technical education classes are located above the cafeteria, which, nestled into the slope, looks out over the neighbouring orchards. A homogenous tectonic is comprised of a combination of prefabricated structural concrete columns and panels and a component curtain wall system iterated to follow the requirements of a variety of programmes.