SCHOOLYARDS

SCHOOLYARDS

NIPpaysage as Architects

Redesign and renovation of numerous outdoor spaces and school yards. Projects include efforts to reduce existing heat islands and create a rich diversity of athletic, leisure and educational activities. Projects contribute to neighbourhood dynamics and local urban experiences.


CASE 1 – PAUL-BRUCHÉSI SCHOOLYARD This project involved the complete redesign and redevelopment of Montreal’s Paul-Bruchési Elementary School yard. Originally entitled “Blue Yard”, the project is located in the trendy Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood, but was built with very a limited budget. For economic reasons, the school decided to keep the existing asphalt paving and build a new project on top. NIPpaysage decided to work within this requirement by exploring large patches of painted colors and softer surfaces to give the site a well-deserved landscape makeover. The result was achieved by implementing a strong coloured scheme to organise and structure different uses and programmed activities. Using circulation patterns and building volumes, a grid of white lines was established, defining and organizing play and other leisure spaces.


The white lines become the site’s mains structure and overall matrix, defining a backdrop at the scale of the entire schoolyard. The oblique outlines of this “white frame” are determined by the architectural elements of the school’s heritage building, such as the entrances or general built volume. Within the white grid, bright blue areas provide various programs and play opportunities. This net of white lines and blue surfaces becomes the texture of play for the entire project, giving renewed identity to the generic and everyday bituminous material seen all around town in local schoolyards. Furthermore, the blue asphalt surface comes alive by the introduction of vegetation (native trees, shrubs, perennial groundcovers, etc.) and the addition of an odd-shaped sculptural earthwork covered with diversely coloured recycled rubber surfaces. Acting as islands, this series of planting beds, rubber landforms, paved meeting points and a few wooden seating and performance terraces punctuate the yard’s otherwise flat surface, allowing a wide range of improvised and unexpected discoveries while moving around the space. This project was built within a neighborhood-scale pilot project to reduce the heat island effects in the downtown area.


CASE 2 – ST-ENFANT-JÉSUS SCHOOLYARD This project included the landscape design of all exterior spaces for the St-Enfant-Jésus-School, located in Montreal’s Plateau-Mont-Royal area. The school offers specialized services to a clientele of hearing and/or visually impaired students. To address specific needs, NIPpaysage proposed a rationalization of the larger paved space by combining play, imagination and security objectives into an overall design scheme.


The existing site was problematic and challenging for its various terrain levels and incomplete concrete fence and retaining wall system which created many small unused (residual) spaces or spaces used by people other than students and teachers, neighbour’s dogs in particular. In order to give the yard back to students while being able to adapt to the existing conditions, a new physical site limit was established and a series of programmatic plateaus were reinforced and associated to specific activities (larger ball courts, parking area, track and field, play structures, grass field, seating, dance stage, etc.). Each zone is well-defined and has its own colors and materials to facilitate student orientation and exploration.


The school, which welcomes students with specific needs and different ways of playing, can now enjoy a colourful landscape where multi-sensorial elements are included to offer a stimulating space for all. The painted patterns on the dark asphalt pavement are both dynamic and playful. It also is a design solution for an efficient, adaptable and exuberant landscape. Small enclosed ball courts and a strongly textured discovery path were included to provide a variety of safe activities for visually handicapped users. Architecture students from McGill University also developed and installed a series of precast concrete prototypes for multi-use and sculptural picnic tables within the yard’s grass areas.


CASE 3 – ST-PAUL-DE-LA-CROIX SCHOOLYARD The landscape project was for the complete renovation and revitalization of major exterior spaces for the St-Paul-de-la-Croix primary school, in the northern neighborhood of Montreal called Ahuntsic.


By using the existing topography as a dynamic activity anchor, destination and viewing point, NIPpaysage created diverse opportunities for school activities, including relaxation, informal and structured play. To emphasize the importance of sports and student movement through the site, the schoolyard landscape is circumscribed by a zigzagging contemporary running track that follows and unifies the two main levels of the schoolyard space. Colorful pictograms and thick lines painted on the pavement animate the dark asphalt surfaces and create a dialog with the children running around the space.


Slopes are used to a maximum as a design tool, with the integration of a large amphitheater and performance space, half of which is sculpted into a comfortable berm of synthetic grass and half of which is built into a wooden seating area. Densely framed with native planting zones at both extremities of the site, the relationship to the urban fabric beyond is improved and the impact of street traffic and noise are reduced.


The addition of a cool and shaded green classroom area near mature street trees allows students and teachers to also use the site in spring and autumn for academic purposes. The non-permeable surfaces contribute to improved site conditions and on-site water management. Globally, the school enjoys a flexible space which is rich with layers of meaning and of activities. The overall project combines students’ ever-present energy with a playful design intent.

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