Lycée Camille Corot

Mark Dudek

Description

The plan of this new high school is very formal with six articulated blocks of teaching accommodation laid out in a clearly delineated grid pattern. On the north end of the grid a powerful main block of accommodation is skewed at a 45 degree angle to the main grid. The designers have taken what for them is a familiar theme, the school as a city in miniature. Adopting a strong linear organisation, it could be imagined that the school would fit easily into a city centre context. However, this is not an urban school. In fact the school is located in cultivated farmland with a grid pattern of fields and hedgerows, which is a key influence. The hedgerow pattern follows a predominantly north-south orientation, which helps to generate the powerful asymmetrical plan. The six teaching blocks within the grid suggest the idea of order and control. They are each dedicated to a particular subject area such as arts, humanities and science, the idea being that students move around for their lessons between clearly defined ‘mini-schools’. The blocks are positioned in such close proximity to each other that students are only ever five or six minutes away from each faculty area. Internal corridors run north to south and a first floor bridge link connects each row of buildings together east to west providing a continuous network.

The benefit of having space between the blocks is that the users are never confined by built form; they always have views either looking out towards the surrounding countryside or inwards to the enclosed courtyard gardens between the blocks. In addition, the buildings are readily identifiable as buildings in their own right, which helps to break down the institutional feel of this large complex. These mini landscaped streets are laid out with wavy sculptural paths, which meander across the lawns between the teaching blocks. The communal or service building provides the geometrical logic to the twist in the plan. This block contains the administration wing, the main assembly hall (which doubles as a community hub for whole school events and evening activities) and the learning resources center. The main circulation is at first floor or mezzanine level. The wide gallery over the hall links into the faculty passageways. Each element of the accommodation within this dominant block is articulated as powerful sculptural forms in light coloured stone or white render. Each of the disparate elements is unified beneath a vast curved roof clad in copper, which runs across the entire length of the block. The architects describe this communal block as a ‘nave’, the centre of the scheme in terms of its social programme. The metaphor can be carried through to interpretations of this unusual school as a medieval cathedral, dominating the near countryside and surrounded by subsidiary elements, the cloister, the baptistery and the monk’s quarters all essential components of the whole, yet retaining their own identity as buildings in their own right. Each part is carefully choreographed to ensure that students are never overwhelmed by the sheer size of the whole building. As you walk round its perimeter it is like an ever changing landscape of architectural events, coherent yet fragmented.