Silver Winner of the International Architecture & Design Awards 2023

Lab École

Architecture

Educational

Concept / Professional Category

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Architect / Designer:

APPAREIL Architecture , Agence Spatiale & BGLA Architecture

Studio:

APPAREIL Architecture , Agence Spatiale & BGLA Architecture

Design Team:

A project in Collaboration between :
-APPAREIL Architecture
-Agence Spatiale
-BGLA Architecture

Country:

Canada

This new school will welcome students from preschool to grade 6 and will count 15 classrooms, including 3 pre-school and 12 elementary classrooms, a single gymnasium, as well as gathering spaces for moving, collaborating, and eating. The architectural project celebrates a thoughtful connection with the territory by inspiring itself from vernacular architecture and the use of regional materials, raw or recycled, that encourage a circular economy. The architectural design aimed to deconstruct the conventional school, a building with an institutional style, and transpose it onto a livable scale, accessible and warm for the child; to design a building on the scale of toddlers; to fragment a complex arrangement into a legible volume; to offer multiple reference points.The school’s characteristic pedagogical approach, described using the term “nurture”, coloured the project, lending it a reassuring and familiar architecture. The characteristics of passive design reinforce the school’s biophillic approach: favouring solar light, allowing each room’s windows to be opened, etc. These principles solidify the idea that the inhabitant can reside in and give life to the school.

This new school will welcome students from preschool to grade 6 and will count 15 classrooms, including 3 pre-school and 12 elementary classrooms, a single gymnasium, as well as gathering spaces for moving, collaborating, and eating. The architectural project celebrates a thoughtful connection with the territory by inspiring itself from vernacular architecture and the use of regional materials, raw or recycled, that encourage a circular economy. The architectural design aimed to deconstruct the conventional school, a building with an institutional style, and transpose it onto a livable scale, accessible and warm for the child; to design a building on the scale of toddlers; to fragment a complex arrangement into a legible volume; to offer multiple reference points.The school’s characteristic pedagogical approach, described using the term “nurture”, coloured the project, lending it a reassuring and familiar architecture. The characteristics of passive design reinforce the school’s biophillic approach: favouring solar light, allowing each room’s windows to be opened, etc. These principles solidify the idea that the inhabitant can reside in and give life to the school.