lili a

A School Under the Canopy: Blending Memory and Imagination

Our ambition for this project transcended a mere technical response to a complex brief. Caught between heavy restructuring, heritage restoration, and contemporary extension, the primary challenge remained human: to carry out the entirety of the work within a single school year. Our priority was to preserve the students’ daily lives and prevent their educational journey from being permanently relegated to the austerity of modular units in a neighboring parking lot.

The Genesis of Bio-based Architecture

To meet this urgency without sacrificing environmental standards, we opted for a prefabricated timber-frame extension. A true ecological manifesto, its structure, cladding, and partitions are entirely designed from bio-based materials. This “dry construction” approach allowed for rapid, precise implementation that remained respectful of the occupied site.

The “Cabin”: A Dialogue Between Eras

The extension houses four new classrooms—increasing the school’s capacity from seven to eleven classes—as well as a library, a kitchen, and a canteen. Conceived as a suspended “cabin,” the building delicately wraps itself around the magnificent century-old plane tree that stands at the heart of the courtyard. Through a play of cantilevers, it appears to float above the existing structures, creating a poetic tension with the 19th-century buildings. Where the millstone and brick impose their orthogonal geometry and terrestrial anchoring, the extension responds with a soft, airy, and organic form.

An Invitation to Wonder

The idea of “perching” the school in this way arose from a dual observation: the site’s constrained topography and the memory of my three-year-old daughter, Lili, agilely climbing trees. This architecture is an ode to childhood. By breaking away from traditional school design codes, this free form embodies the imagination that a school must cultivate. It celebrates thought liberated from convention, inviting children to literally step “outside the box” to rediscover their environment with curiosity. More than a place of learning, the school here becomes a territory for exploration, where the architecture itself teaches the art of wonder.