Pavillon Le Vau

The Le Vau Educational Pavilion is a project made of wood and raw earth, built in a school complex in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. The project required combining three challenges: designing architecture that could accommodate both hospitality and education; creating a place of connection between the school and its neighbourhood; and contributing to the decarbonisation of construction. We chose a circular room, as the circle allows for numerous layouts that are collective, collaborative and more egalitarian between everyone.

This project is the result of institutional initiatives as well as observations made by the teaching staff at Le Vau School, who consistently note the difficulty of convincing parents to walk through the school gates and stay there. They observe a form of inhibition, even mistrust, towards the school as an institution. Within different programmes, newly created green spaces and uses have enabled parents and teachers to find new places for interaction, and this gave rise to the idea of considering, within the framework of the participatory budget, the creation of a reception and teaching area in the school playground. Our role as architects was therefore to develop a concept that combined different challenges: architecture capable of accommodating two different uses; the connection between the school and its neighbourhood; and the decarbonisation of the building. The geometry combines these three challenges and creates this unique space.

First, the concrete foundations provide stability on the ground that was once the site of Paris's old quarries. Next, the six rammed earth walls are supported by tinted concrete heel blocks to prevent water from rising through capillary action. The six walls of rammed earth accommodate a circular wooden frame with a glass oculus at the top. The whole structure is insulated and then covered with a material commonly used for Parisian roofs: pre-patinated zinc. Earth is used here for its structural and thermal properties, but also for its aesthetic qualities. The project is built using geo-sourced, bio-based, local and carbon-free materials. It is the first load-bearing rammed earth building in Paris. The rammed earth walls were built during the summer to take advantage of low humidity. They were constructed using a single wooden mould modelled in 3D and then built in the workshop. The six walls took a month to dry before the roof structure could be installed on top.