QUAI DESCHAMPS

We thought this place like a federating element, a link between the programs, the school and the lodgings, which should be perceived like the fifth façade of the project.

This base is composed with the alleyways, the school yards and the remaining spaces. The alleyways form a quality free space between the lodgings. The school yards are overlapped and organized around curved landscape strips. The yards appear like a breath of fresh air, a landscape element, for all, and allow garden and Garonne views for the lodgings.

The place keeps going southwards with a mineral landscape, surrounding collective spaces and creating places you can appropriate, with an exceptional viewpoint on the garden. This common base is at the same time an urban, artistic and landscaping element. The schools entrances, immediately identifiable, are situated south of the Deschamps alleyway, they are common, but clearly differentiable. They are set back, in relation to the Deschamps alley, and underlined by a cantilever acting as an awning.
Children and parents are welcomed in a shadowed, green space. It’s a socialization place. We conceived a curve vocabulary, from the hall to the classrooms, to accompany the children smoothly and encourage their well-being.

We want a building that children can comprehend easily: the school functionalities are clearly identified, the extracurricular is put forth by a semi-circular architecture, and the library and computer room are made attractive by their singular volumetry.

We think culture and art are fundamental elements to children’s development, and that art could be present in the entire city and accessible to all. In this approach, we could envision an artist’s intervention, like Cyprien Chabert, to operate on our common base or on the detached volumes of the school’s buildings, using the universal language of plants.