Elisabeth and Robert Badinter Elementary School
Public schools are an essential tool for addressing current social and environmental issues. Promoting children's well-being, raising their civic, ecological, and social awareness, and reducing class and gender inequalities are the goals that public schools must set for themselves.
To achieve these ambitions, the Élisabeth & Robert Badinter School Group is innovating and proposing to rethink public education facilities by creating a new symbiosis between school and nature.
Inspired by the French “open-air schools” of the 20th century (cf- Suresnes, Architects :Eugène Beaudouin, Marcel Lods, 1935) this new school complex for the municipality of Audenge offers an alternative to traditional schools. Here, classes are taught differently, in contact with nature.
This new school is designed to respect the existing environment and biodiversity. Built around a pre-existing wood, a true preserved living heritage, the U-shaped building creates a protective cocoon where nature and learning spaces are intertwined.
The green roofs on the ground floor form a vegetal corridor for biodiversity between the educational wood on the south side of the plot and the pine forest on the north side.
The classrooms are oriented towards the outside thanks to large windows that open up to reveal the surrounding biodiversity. Intimate terraces for outdoor classes and educational spaces in the heart of nature allow classes to be extended outside. Thus, this building offers continuity between indoors and outdoors, providing a spatial alternative to conventional educational spaces.
With green playgrounds, indoor/outdoor classrooms, terraces/outdoor classrooms, a shared vegetable garden, and an educational woodland, the learning spaces in this facility extend outdoors, with nature becoming a teaching aid.
With ultra-local wood from the forests of Audenge, raw earth from the site, oyster shell paving stones, wood-frame walls insulated with straw from local agricultural waste, and reused dredging sediments from the « Bassin d’Arcachon » , this school is firmly rooted in its territory and showcases the bio-based materials available from local sources.
This project provides the town of Audenge with an innovative elementary school, designed with an indoor/outdoor approach that is both frugal and resilient. A project rooted in its territory, closely linked to nature. It is an inclusive place, supporting new teaching methods, promoting sharing and living together, and stimulating children's awareness and curiosity to make them more aware of the environmental and civic issues of today and tomorrow. This bioclimatic building, exemplary in environmental terms, is constructed from local bio-based materials. It is designed on a child-friendly scale and acts as a link between nature and education for all.
