Lycée des Métiers Anne Veaute
Restructuration and extension of an 800 pupil's college
At the border of Castres' city centre, the college's site is complexe, dense, with a heterogeneous architectual context.
The profesionnal collège Anne Veaute obtains the label « Lycée des Métiers » and has to step torwards the business world. It needs to be more opened, with new communication and reception functions focusing on professionals and public individuals.
Although the extension is not the main building, it is positioned facing the entrance, redefining the architectural complex and its new identity of Lycée des Métiers.
The spaces are redimensioned to meet the new educational demands.Showroom, prosthetics and orthotics workshops, optical shop, and hair salon are perfectly readable behind the glass facade.
While the building is brought up to standards, as demanded by the program, it is the whole of the functions of the college and the student's path that is reconsidered.
The requalification goes with the creation of obvious and intuitive paths. The new building is positioned at the center of the school for functioning reasons, but its composition, its facades allows a reasuring visual continuity.
The exteriors are defined following the needs of new users. The central courtyard is partly covered to form a calm "cloister" space where 3 umbrella pines can be seen. The external spaces are leveled to simplify access to each building. The underground restaurant is opened thanks to opening within the stands defining the higher and lower courtyard. These white concrete stands are places of relaxation, fashion parade, exchanges...
In this very mineral, hard and enclosed space, the new building's architecture is transparent. The strict and framed white facades, made of Géode MX and Technal products, calm and articulate a site that had come close to congestion.
