Designed by Pierre Marsan, Set in the foothills of the French Pyrenees, the village of Bosdarros extends along the main street, the primary school is the entry point. The project aims, firstly, to redefine the accessibility to the school that is limited by wild parking, cypresses, and different entrances, and secondly to reform its usability. Two elements are thus created: a new refectory is set in tangent with the school and a staircase is appended to the back side of the old building, generating a new distribution of open-plan spaces.
Photography: Franck Brouillet
Facing a church built on a secondary pilgrim way to Santiago de Compostela, the project unfurls a succession of rhythms, planes and oblique directions, which are the result of various features of both the program and the site being added together. The differing lines of axes allow to optimize the ground area, to delimit the playground, to insert a covered courtyard as a link between the school and the refectory and to flap up to the new school entrance.
The refectory layout is composed of a rectangular technical block and a dining room, which can be converted into a multipurpose room. This canteen opens at the playground on one side and the village square on the other side thanks to windowed ribbons equipped with a wooden grid (structure posts and windows frames). The insulating glass combined with ventilation options insures comfortable usage for the people inside.
Photography: Franck Brouillet
Similarly, over...