Crèche-UAPE Charrat
Setting. The plot on which the future building is to stand possesses two elements of strong geometry. First, the Rue des Grands Praz, which borders the plot (to the north) and fits naturally into the orthogonal street system that characterises the whole network of the municipality. Then the school (and municipal) complex, which through its slightly raised setting and its strict east-west orientation frees itself from the urban alignment, reading as a singular element, somewhat disconnected from the village fabric.
The desire to understand the building both as an open place attached to the village, yet functioning with the school, guides the choice of an articulated form which, through its geometry, makes it possible to evade the difficult choice of belonging to one system or the other.
The new nursery thus reads as an open place, maintaining a strong link with the village through its alignment on the street, but also a controlled tension with the existing complex, reinforced by the choice of a two-storey volume. The proximity of the latter to the school also makes it possible to solve the safety issues related to the dike and to preserve the land to the east — whether for events or for a future extension.
Access. The cut-out form generates three clearly defined sub-spaces: first, to the south, the playground for the youngest, also serving as a secure play area for the day-care centre, whose geometry is clarified compared to the current situation. Then, to the north, two access pockets — one for the nursery-crèche facing the drop-off spaces, the other for the day-care centre, opening both onto the street and onto the school, thus allowing a safe route for the schoolchildren from the school building.
The setting of the nursery also makes it possible to redevelop the current dike. The intervention becomes less ostentatious, through the discreet arrangement of a low wall and the redevelopment of the southern part of the dike. While preserving the functional aspects of a secure courtyard, it generates direct access to the outdoor sports fields via the Rue des Grands Praz, thus more naturally integrating the school and sports complex into the village fabric.
Typology. The programme is arranged on two levels: on the ground floor, the day-care centre, which naturally benefits from the synergies with the schoolyard. Upstairs, the nursery and crèche, with their own secure outdoor space.
Each floor is conceived as an independent level made up of major spaces, carried by a series of stacked blocks that group together the more technical functions. The seemingly disordered composition of these blocks in plan in fact responds to a strict logic that allows the definition of the spaces.
Thus, depending on uses, times or events, they generate either clearly defined spaces — corridor, threshold, activity room — or a more complex spatial continuum, made of perspectives, dilations and contractions, that invites the child to discover their environment … in a way, a life-sized playful material, a reinterpretation of Froebel's blocks.
The systematic dual orientation of the activity or dining rooms allows effective management of direct sunlight and, consequently, of overheating problems. The interior of the blocks is sometimes entirely opaque (technical rooms), sometimes slightly open to the outside (nap rooms) or to the inside (care rooms), thus allowing a simple and effective appropriation.
Materiality. Spatiality guides the proposed materiality. Thus the outer envelope of the blocks appears as wood; it is homogeneous and identical throughout the project. The compositional interplay (depth, orientation, perspective) is revealed by the natural light, which itself becomes a material.
The levels are perceived as neutral elements, whose materiality must answer the uses (wear, acoustics) but without ostentation, in order to set the stage both for the more precious blocks and for the children, the true actors of the space.
Finally, the interior of the blocks is conceived as a space in itself, a small discovery for the children: playful places, with varied colours and fittings thought out for them.
In collaboration with GAME Architectes.