School and community centre
How can a preschool, an elementary school, a school cafeteria, a gymnasium, an after-school program, a daycare center, a community library, a nursing home, a parking lot, and playgrounds all be accommodated on a single, steeply sloped site within a suburban neighborhood?
Our project for a school complex and community center pays homage to the neighborhood’s residential character and steep slope. A series of staggered buildings creates outdoor courtyards that extend the various programs, while leveraging the topography to ensure technical and functional connections between the buildings.
The design is guided by construction materials (masonry and timber structure), generous windows with wooden frames, sloped roofs, and the scale of the buildings. Each building maintains a special relationship with its surroundings and the activities it houses: the gymnasium makes the most of its large, open-plan space; its transparent character allows the eye to sweep through it, with a refined roof structure facing Lake Léman. The library fosters an intimate atmosphere by allowing light to fall across its wood finishes. The technical extensions of the school cafeteria blend into the topography, giving the dining hall a balcony-like vantage point over the landscape. The classrooms enclose and shield the playgrounds, while the roofs extend outward to form covered play areas.
The two schools are designed to be both independent and interconnected, functioning in close relationship with each other and with after-school programs, while maintaining operational autonomy from the other facilities and respecting different daily rhythms.
More broadly, the site design operates at the intersection of educational spaces and public amenities. The outdoor areas are conceived as pedagogical landscapes, highlighting plant diversity and the use of local materials, and encouraging easy appropriation by children and the community. Play is integrated in simple and intuitive ways: a staircase becomes a place to climb, a slope transforms into a slide, wide steps invite gathering, and scattered elements - stones, plants - spark imagination.
