Children's Day Care Centre

The crèche is set in the depths of a garden. Situated close to a shopping centre, this amenity creates a social and urban link between the upper and lower town by forming a pathway between them. The building buttresses the upper road by a double level atrium, lit naturally by a glass roof. Thick floor plates and 'servant' blocks accommodate the programme forming a strata-like foundation to the hillside cemetery and creating a theatrical backdrop to the listed 'Niçoise' villa below. The rooftop offers staff car parking. It is a mineral building that cocoons and protects through its neutral architecture The crèche is set in the depths of a garden. Situated close to a shopping centre, this amenity creates a social and urban link between the upper and lower town by forming a pathway between them. The building buttresses the upper road by a double level atrium, lit naturally by a glass roof. Thick floor plates and 'servant' blocks accommodate the programme forming a strata-like foundation to the hillside cemetery and creating a theatrical backdrop to the listed 'Niçoise' villa below. The rooftop offers staff car parking. It is a mineral building that cocoons and protects through its neutral architecture. Nestled between a shopping mall and a cemetery, there is an old villa sunken deep in an ancient garden. The crèche is placed in the depths of this public garden, as if retaining wall to the road above. Functioning as both a building and a scenography, the project orders and orientates the gaze toward carefully framed viewpoints. The implantation of the building and its surroundings create a physical junction for the town, serving as a public passageway coupling the levels between the upper and lower roads. For economic reasons we limited the excavation by placing the car park on the rooftop, re-employing the earth for the new public space. Two floor-plates housing the programmatic elements cantilever 3 metres over the facade, protecting the playgrounds from the sun. These horizontal strata are set against a sequence of vertical blocks that form a structural framework and are used to contain the utility elements of the nursery.

The generous spans between these servant blocks are destined for the nursery s play and living areas. The physical superposition of the two levels corresponds with the superposition of the functions (nursery with the garden level / administration and reception with the upper level). The frameworks of the large bay windows are embedded within the floor and ceiling and slide laterally to disappear entirely behind a hidden doublewall and pivoting vertical panels in the interior doors permit natural ventilation and smoke extraction. A deep void created between the building and the hillside and enclosed by a sunroof forms a vertical linking element uniting the northern face of the project. Standing in this atrium, we read the entirety of the excavation by the height of the building against the hillside. The natural relationship between the interior and exterior spaces concludes the relationship between the ground and the sky.

The building interacts with its context, connecting to the boundaries of the site. The inclusion of a rooftop car-park, accessible from the road, limited the excavation. The architecture encourages natural light and ventilation, the glass roof of the atrium redressing the light from the classrooms against the retaining wall. Concrete is the principal material, providing good thermal inertia. Quarries and cement plants were in close proximity to the site. The neutrality of the architecture opens the potential of future transformations to the building.