CHILDREN’S DAY CARE CENTRE IN LA TRINITE
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Nestled between a sprawling shopping mall and a cemetery carved into the hillside, there is an old 'Niçoise' villa sunken deep in an ancient garden. Behind the house, the terrain rises in steps upward toward the street, a topographical vestige of agricultural terracing, 'restanques,' used for growing olives.
The creche is placed in the depths of this public garden, as if retaining wall to the road above. The implantation of the building and its surroundings create a physical junction for the town, serving as a public passageway coupling the levels. The project triggers a new urban geography, uniting the hillside terrains and regrouping the disparate elements of 'La Trinite'
Functioning as both a building and scenographic passage between the upper and lower roads, the project reveals the topography and landscape, ordering and orienting the gaze toward carefully framed viewpoints. Like a buttress the building leans and pushes against the terrain, re-landscaping the base of the hillside.
The creche seeks to employ the strong geometry of this predefined site to generate the overall composition of the programmatic elements within. A natural pathway is created, linking the boulevard and large parking lot of the shopping complex below to the town above. A staggered walkway draws in the parent or ambling pedestrian toward successive rising stairways tracing strips in the public garden and creating shaded sitting areas between the walls.
A wide stairway climbs toward the forecourt access of the creche complex before continuing upward to the overlooking street the 'Chemin de l'Olivaie.' Facing south outward, the entrance is bathed in sunlight and the 'parvis' shaded by a large concrete trellis.
STRATA
Like a fold in the land or a draped textile over the foothills, the implantation of the building withing the site organises and exploits the endless potentials of the apertures created.
The restructuring of the levelling was at the heart of the conception of this creche. An accessible rooftop-parking lot superposes two floor-plates housing the programmatic elements of the scheme. This floor/roof plate is set lower than the road above, preserving the sightline over the garden and valley below. The ground floor is slightly raised above the public garden to conserve a clear visual link with the boulevard access.
The floor plates cantilever 3 meters over the facade, protecting the playgrounds and walkways from the sun. This structural 'awning' traces deep horizontal layers on facade, highlighting and delineating each level. The strong horizontal aspect of the project echoes the bygone tradition in the region of 'restanques', a stepped form of landscaping enabling the steep hillsides to be fully exploited for agriculture. These strata are set against a sequencing of vertical blocks that form a structural framework and are used to contain the utility elements of the nursery; feeding and sleeping bays, and storage rooms. These 'service blocks replace the need for columns, the generous spans between creating large spaces for the nursery's play and living areas. Several of these modules are extruded through the superposition of levels to emerge from the roof like modern 'Propylaea. These monolithic structures mark the extremities of the full footprint of the project, almost a snub to the towering neighbourhood housing blocks with their unloved side- facades. Another block protrudes laterally along the entrance forecourt, enclosing the playground protectively.
This playful composition of vertical and horizontal elements balances the solemn calm created by the closed blocks and the voids between them.
ENVIRONMENT / SURROUNDINGS
Corresponding with the linking of the creche to the scale and geography of the town is the relationship between the different spaces within the interior of the project. The topological reflexion is seen within the vertical links as well as with the continuity of the horizontal lines. The physical super- positioning of the two levels, corresponds with a superposition of the functions (nursery with the garden level and playgrounds / administration, reception and education with the upper level.)
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. This communal space serves a major role as circulation space within the project.
Standing in this atrium, we can visually read the entirety of the excavation, the height of the building and its full scale against the hillside. By installing suspended gardens and highlighting the scale of this volume, the architects evoke the remarkable winter gardens found in the 'Riviera Palace' near Monaco, where the back of the building is as, if not more so attractive than the south facing 'front' facade. This generous volume captures the afternoon sunlight, reawakening the heart of this building in the hours when the light on the southern face is gently fading.
The relationship between the ground and the sky is concluded by a reflexion on the fluidity between interior and exterior limits. The frameworks of the large glass fronts are embedded within the floor and ceiling and slide laterally to disappear entirely behind a hidden double-wall; the face of the concrete utility blocks. The total disappearance of these glass-fronts dilates the nursery space and the boundary between inside and outside is blurred.
The atrium facing sides of these classrooms are comprised of glassed walls and doors, some with pivoting vertical panels that allow both air currents and natural light to permeate uninterrupted into the interior spaces.
The materiality of the building highlights the usage of the spaces: smooth concrete in the living areas, textured concrete for areas in contact with the natural terrain and soft sycamore wood for the interior shutters, lockers and changing tables.
In the entrance, reception and administration areas; lockers in wood and small benches in concrete create smaller, more intimate sub spaces within the large sunroof-lit double volume
In the sleeping, bathing and feeding bays, the rooms are closable by a system of half 'stable' doors' enabling adjustable lighting options and flexible supervision. The changing facilities are placed in the center of the living sections, within cubic wooden volumes, allowing clear sightlines over the movements of the children.
