two schools designed by landscape and
the living

In Mainvilliers, ANMA Architectes Urbanistes and Officine d’Architecture have teamed up to design the new Hugo-Zola school complex on behalf of the town. This is a major facility in the transformation of the Tallemont-Bretagne neighborhood, bringing together a nursery school, an elementary school and a canteen, all operating in conjunction with the new nearby Accueil de Loisir Sans Hébergement (ALSH).

On discovering the site, the landscape qualities of the neighborhood’s streets and alleyways, and the presence of numerous remarkable trees on the plot, convinced our team of a bias already firmly established at ANMA: living things and landscape are the project’s key features, and will be the determining factors in its urban integration.

maximize open-ground areas

The new facility will be built between the existing trees, to which new, generous plant strata will respond, creating a setting that is beneficial to all: it will protect the privacy of school life, provide educational support for children, help maintain biodiversity in the city, be a natural engineering tool to combat heat islands and create pleasant landscape views for the neighborhood.

At the heart of this new island of freshness, the building itself is compact, rational and S-folded to adapt to the shape of the plot and move away from its boundaries, leaving plenty of room for the landscape, opening up views and shared uses with the ASLH, while minimizing the amount of artificial land required for its construction.

a second home for children

The silhouette of the project reinterprets the codes of domestic architecture: large, double-sloped roofs provide a sense of belonging for the children, for whom the school, in view of the time they spend there, truly feels like a second home.

In the wings of the building, all the classrooms are identified by “hut houses” that give way, in the center, to a “large central house” housing the common areas and marking the entrance sequence from the forecourt.

construction impact control

The complex also retains a distinct architectural identity for each school unit. On the first floor, easily accessible to children aged 3 to 5, the kindergarten features a low-carbon mineral facade, in warm shades of matricite, as a structured, solid material evoking the nurturing soil. The two-storey elementary school, on the other hand, is decked out in wood and punctuated by sunshades. A more ethereal style of writing that invites awakened minds to soar towards the learning of new subjects.

Controlling the right-of-way, these new contextual volumes… and the impact of construction! The project relies on a wood design – structure, insulation, facade, joinery – to which it adds, for thermal inertia, a base and a low-carbon concrete floor, as well as inter-class partitions in mud bricks.

PROJECT TEAM

MANAGEMENT PROJECT
Architect, landscape designer: ANMA
Associate architect, interior designer: Officine d’Architecture
Engineering office: OTE
Environment : Otelio
Kitchen designer: BETR

COMPETITION
Alice Perugini, Alexandre Bigot

STUDIES
Sara Averardi, Alexandre Bigot

TECHNICAL SHEET

STATUS On-going research

PROJECT MANAGEMENT City of Mainvilliers

ESTIMATED COST OF WORK €10M

SCHEDULE 2023-2026

SURFACE Site 0.5 ha, 3,900 m² SP, 2,600 m² green spaces

PERSPECTIVIST Air Studio

ILLUSTRATIONS Axel Chifflet

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