Architects:NAS architecture

Area :1290 m²

Year :2019

Engineer And Coordinator : OTCE

Client : SPL Agate

Engineer And Coordinator : OTCE

City : Saint-Gilles

Country : France

New reading of the place. The project is located in Saint-Gilles, a town of 13,000 inhabitants adjacent to the Camargue National Park, in the Gard department in Occitanie. The intervention site is articulated between the limit of the city center and the beginning of the suburban fabric, in an in-between with a transient identity. Due to the obsolescence of the equipment, the town wished to undertake major rehabilitation works on the occupied site. The building, built in 1953 to be a public bath, became a Kindergarten in 1979, which explains the peculiarity of its architecture and its ornaments. The school now consists of four classrooms, a dormitory, a canteen, teaching spaces, extracurricular areas, a hall serving as an indoor courtyard, and two courtyards.

The School on the roof. As for the extension bias, so as not to clutter up the playgrounds, it was decided to act like a palimpsest by taking possession of existing roofs. Thus, different entities, constructive systems, and constructed temporalities are superimposed. The wooden structure was favored for its speed of implementation, guaranteeing a clean site, and highlighting the use of bio-sourced materials.