Collège des Tuillières

Mark Dudek

Description

The new Collège des Tuillières is located in the heart of the ‘Cité Ouest’ residential neighbourhood. The dominant planning strategy of the quartier is the old- fashioned Corbusian notion of high-rise buildings within a park-like setting. Despite their poor architectural quality, the compactness of the existing blocks is a theme the architects of this new school have followed, concentrating all of the new accommodation into a single, four-storey rectangular block (with subterranean basement) set in a spacious green setting. The impression is one of bulk rather than height, with solid regular fenestration, which is rectangular and squat in appearance; the new school is reminiscent of an Italian palazzo, wider and longer than it is tall, despite the fact that it dominates its site.

A somewhat extraordinary design feature is visible at the short southeast end, in the form of a huge cantilevered section of building three storeys high. The unsupported end is 9 metres deep and 35 metres across. This eccentric structural gesture takes up the entire length of the short end of the building. From certain angles it makes the edifice appear to be toppling over. However, it is a design motif which makes sense when you begin to explore the interior, which is full of cantilevered balconies and staircase details. Despite this, there is a sense of solidity about its architectural expression, with a limited palette of robust natural materials used throughout; this is very much an institutional building made to last. Beneath the cantilever at ground floor level is the main entrance.

Once inside the recessed glazed entrance screen, the foyer is a broad wood lined hallway with the main staircase on the left side and the office/reception to the right. Beyond the entrance hall, views open up across and down to the large semi-submerged sports hall. Moving through towards the centre of the building, the dominant internal feature appears in view, which is a four-storey galleried atrium with large north-light roof windows at the top. The effect is impressive, students entering the building are at once aware of a new internal world, a monumental space which allows physical and visual connections throughout the building, an intermediate world between the privacy of the classroom and the street. Indeed the scale of this space is very much akin to a street, with activity and movement enhancing the overall sense of community; only this is a street which runs vertically up through the building, terminating on the third floor. It gives the school a unique sense of its own combined public and private identity, with stairways and galleries encouraging movement around this stylish volume. However, the route or promenade does not simply permit internal views. At each level (above ground floor), there is a classroom wide void and two large staircase windows, which give users direct views out to the surrounding area. It strikes a subtle spatial balance between the intimacy of a single internalised shared space, the atrium, and the openness and excitement of space and scale, vista and distant views of the surrounding townscape.

The building is laid out in a predictable way with classrooms stacked within the three upper storeys, around the atrium light well. At ground floor level, on either side of the main entrance is the staff and administration area with offices and meeting rooms, which effectively police the comings and goings of students in and out of the main entrance area. Beneath ground floor level the sports hall and associated changing rooms together with plant rooms form a solid base. The double basketball courts benefit from natural side-lit windows with views of the sky and natural cross ventilation. The careful orientation enhances the overall transparency of the entire building which connects the interior to the outside play spaces and, as explained previously, the classroom accommodation to the administration and leisure facilities. The sports hall has its own entrance, which provides access to the local community during evenings and weekends.

The materials used on this concrete frame structure are spare and somewhat austere creating an almost colourless environment. Inside the building, exposed concrete forms a framework for polished timber cladding in light beech, used on classroom walls, balustrades and classroom floors. The balustrade timber provides a colour/texture routing system through the building, as generous open staircases take visitors on a promenade walk up through the building. It is a gentle and spacious environment, a place for calm reflection. Externally, rich blue-green ceramic tiles are the chosen cladding material, used as a decorative skin, which gives a subtly changing reflective hue as the sun moves around the building. The building has developed an iconic imagery for the modern school building, a little institutional for some tastes, but for most, a reassuring presence within the community.