COU - SCHOOL COMPLEX OF COUCHANT
Awarded among the winners of Best Architects 2021 in the educational category, the new School complex of Couchant in Nyon (Vaud, Switzerland) accommodates a primary school for 480 students, extracurricular spaces for 60 children, a music school and medical services all in the same building. This composite program is located in an urban fragment that enriches some public spaces around its perimeter.
The articulation of the volumes reflects the organization of the different parts of the program and ensures them independent access. The volumetric composition varies in height by creating a series of consecutive terraces. Its fragmented shape reacts to the context, offering partial perceptions and a changing scale.
In the centre of the ground floor takes place the partially in-ground volume of the gymnastics hall, that separates the entrance of the primary school from the one of the extracurricular activities.
On the first floor, the primary school and the music school share the rhythm room while preserving their functional independency. In the second and third floors are the remaining classrooms.
The circulation of the school winds around the main staircase. Views onto the gym, the courtyard or the green terraces adorn the corridors of the different storeys.
On a formal level, the building responds to different urban scales, starting from a street front with four levels, to then reduce to a volume of 2 floors on a park side. Its dark and striated metallic facade proposes a vibrant echo to the park vegetation.
