Accomplished performance: wooden schools, Limeil-Brevannes, France by r2k-architectes.

Photos: Jussi Tiainen.

In France mayors have the power to choose architects and decide how public buildings should look. Often this power is exercised with considerable skill and care producing public buildings of excellent quality, as is the case here. The Mayor of Limeil-Brevannes had hitched his political wagon to sustainability, and in his view this meant wooden schools. The practice r2k-architectes, were only too happy to oblige with this accomplished performance, executed without drama.

The school will eventually form the very centre of the town with the Town Hall beside to the north, and the “mediatheque” or, souped-up library to old fashioned types, next to that. To the remaining sides the school is connected to the housing fabric from where it will draw its pupils.

The intention was to create an individual school that is its own town, confident and assertive of its identity.