Yvonne Kerzrého School Complex

Salem Mostefaoui

• Architetti

School complexes for active pedagogy

The evolution of educational programmes currently underway in Anglo-Saxon countries is leading to a radical transformation of school architecture typologies. This shift moves away from teaching methods and spatial models inherited from the 19th century, characterised by classrooms aligned along corridors and designed for frontal, passive instruction. Schools such as Hellerup Skole and Ørestad College in Copenhagen, as well as Waldorf schools by Peter Hübner in Germany and Peter Märkli in Switzerland, propose “learning landscapes” (Lernlandschaften) or “learning clusters”, in which classrooms are combined with large, flexible, multi-purpose spaces with openended uses, enabling individual or smallgroup learning.

photo_credit Salem Mostefaoui — Salem Mostefaoui

Peter Hübner’s philosophy goes further: as the school constitutes the child’s primary environment during the day, he does not conceive it as a public building or an institution, but rather as a village at the child’s scale, allowing free access to the spaces and activities they need throughout the day.

The pedagogy underlying these spatial transformations—particularly developed by the Montagsstiftung in Germany—advances the following idea: in order for children to learn under the best conditions, teaching must be adapted to their physiological rhythms and needs, and the school day organised according to their capacity for concentration as well as their need for rest or physical activity. As these cycles differ from one child to another, flexibility and freedom must also be introduced into teaching by granting a degree of autonomy to each individual.

At the same time, teaching is becoming more diverse. Frontal learning (the class facing the teacher) is receding in favour of more specific and interactive learning models: individual learning, small- and large-group work, and mixed-age classes where children learn from one another, as the most effective way to consolidate knowledge is through transmission.

In line with Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia approach in Italy, who stated that “the third teacher is the space,” neuroscientist Wolf Singer of the Max Planck Institute asserts that the richer our sensory experiences are in childhood, the greater our ability to meet intellectual and social challenges as adults. Our built and natural environment therefore clearly constitutes a major catalyst for sensory experiences.

Drawing on the theories of Maria Montessori, he explains that the child is a curious “sponge” who seeks above all to learn, to experience new things, and to improve every day. The role of adults or educational institutions is therefore to place the child in the best possible environment, to adapt teaching to their physiological and psychological capacities, and above all to prevent the development of frustration towards school and learning.

In order to implement these new forms of learning, learning environments must also evolve. However, this work must be initiated at the programming stage, in agreement and in collaboration with teaching teams.

With more than 15 years of experience in school architecture, we strive to bring playful and educational added value to our projects through a range of approaches:

•transforming corridors into useful spaces by integrating features (platforms, libraries, stages, etc.);

•integrating multi-purpose, shared and flexible spaces open to appropriation; •designing differentiated, playful classrooms adapted to children;

•providing generous outdoor spaces that encourage interaction between different users (students from different age groups, teachers, the city, parents, citizens);

•opening the school to the city and promoting the mixed use of public facilities; •offering rich, playful and varied spatial experiences (ramps, slides, hills, climbing walls, stairs, alcoves, etc.);

•creating natural spaces, parks and gardens that encourage exploration and play in nature (vegetable gardens, wooded areas, plants, beehives, cabins, etc.).

Today, school architecture is subject to over-regulation, which tends to reduce the responsibility of both children and their parents. However, the creation of a sanitised and overprotected environment cannot prepare children to understand the world around them and its potential dangers.

“Fortress schools,” as geographer Pascal Clerc describes these school complexes that form an opaque enclosure between the playground and the public space, place children in a closed environment governed by discipline. In Anglo-Saxon countries, playgrounds are often integrated into the public space, freely accessible and lively in the evenings and on weekends. There is no need for supervisors, turnstiles, report booklets, or such devices that evoke border control. Children are not in prison; they do not run away.

The traditional school, closed and based on frontal teaching, requires a disciplinary system because its very structure creates disciplinary issues. By placing students in a passive and subordinate position, it does not foster autonomy, creativity or a sense of responsibility. It insufficiently stimulates their cognitive, emotional and social skills, which are nevertheless essential for integrating into the world of tomorrow.

In Germany, experiences with Waldkindergärten, forest kindergartens, are multiplying; only a bungalow or a caravan allow children to rest or have a meal in a warm place, while the rest of the time their learning takes place in direct contact with nature, with all the risks and adventures this entails.

Schools are not only places for learning knowledge, but above all places for learning how to live in society: developing children’s sense of responsibility by avoiding overprotection, as well as developing their awareness of the environment by building passive and sustainable schools, are part of this.

Context

At the heart of Les Groues neighbourhood, a district undergoing major urban transformation in Nanterre, a city in Paris' western suburbs, the Yvonne Kerzrého school complex is a structuring public facility, responding to the educational, social and cultural needs of the neighbourhood. It accommodates 20 classes, including 8 nursery and 12 primary, an after-school care centre and a school cafeteria.

This project develops two themes that have long underpinned the work of sam architecture:

• on one hand, the design of low-carbon and durable architecture, based on the use of bio-based materials and passive environmental strategies;

• on the other hand, an experimental and innovative spatial research approach, designed to support ongoing pedagogical innovation.

A school designed like a city

Breaking decisively with the typology of historical schools, the Yvonne Kerzrého school complex is conceived as a city open to the sky, where life develops around a central atrium. This atrium is protected by a roof, whose two wings lift like a butterfly to allow light to penetrate the heart of the building.

From the entrance, the monumental staircase connecting the hall to the roof terrace makes its way through the timber structure of this dense and compact “learning machine.” In contrast to the school model predominant in Northern Europe—often reduced to a functional parallelepiped—the Yvonne Kerzrého school complex, like its counterpart in Gennevilliers completed by the practice two years earlier, rises gently into the sky, gradually linking, floor by floor, the Jardin des Rails square to the rooftop.

Organisation and uses

Each floor accommodates a unit of the spatial programme:

- On the ground floor, shared and multipurpose spaces: the media library, the motor skills room, the cafeteria and the administration offices. The nursery afterschool care centre is also located on the ground floor on the courtyard side.

- On the first floor, the nursery school and the primary after-school care centre. - On the second floor, the primary school.

Each level is accompanied by courtyards and private terraces, forming as many artificial ground planes surrounding the interior spaces. Each classroom thus benefits from a direct outdoor extension, whether through terraces or access galleries, expanding the range of possibilities for educational activities, even in a dense urban environment.

Diversity of spaces

The interior atrium, the heart of the project, offers a multitude of spatial situations unusual for a school programme:

• monumental bleachers overlooking the hall;

• cross views between the access galleries of the nursery and primary schools, as in a courtyard building;

• a central plaza facing the cafeteria, equipped with large stepped seating;

• semi-circular seating on the upper walkways;

• shared small squares at the ends of circulation routes.

These differentiated spaces provide a range of stimulating places available to children and teachers wishing to extend learning activities beyond the classroom.

Atmosphere and materials

The interior, dominated by timber, contrasts with the building’s façade in concrete, marked by balconies and columns. This dual reading is the result of a thorough reflection on the balance between carbon impact and material durability. Timber is used inside or in the façades beneath the access galleries in order to be durably protected from weathering and to ensure controlled ageing. The double timber-concrete structure of the façade ensures continuity of insulation while minimising thermal bridges.

The combination of timber and concrete also allows optimised technical performance in the floors: composite floors connect concrete slabs to timber joists, reducing the use of concrete while remaining within a traditional and proven flat roof system, covered with a continuous concrete screed.

Technical systems are left exposed through the removal of suspended ceilings, thus expressing the construction in all its dimensions.

Outdoor spaces

The project offers a wide variety of courtyards, almost double the required programme, with on the ground floor a natural courtyard in open ground, on the first and second floors mineral courtyards suited to mid-season and winter conditions, to ball games and wheeled play, and on the roof a large terrace shaded by photovoltaic panels.

At the top, the butterfly roof, a double shed that brings light and ventilation to the atrium, accommodates an outdoor theatre. It recalls the fifth façades of the Cités Radieuses and their facilities, key achievements of the modern movement, which, through this device, redefined the image and use of architecture.