The teaching center of Nyon consists of the existing gymnasium, realized in the 1980’s, and a set of new buildings sheltering the extension of the gymnasium and professional school of commerce. These various buildings shapes a campus at the heart of Nyon’s urban area.
Located one the north westside of the train line Lausanne-Geneva, the site is cut across by a secondary railroad which decomposes it into two triangular surfaces. The project invests each of them by having on one side, around the existing Gymnasium, the building receiving all of the school program and on the other side the sports program. A pedestrian tunnel skips under the railway Nyon/Eysin and connects the different constructions.
The new school building establishes a balanced relationship with the existing gymnasium. Its assertive character allows it to mark its presence while proposing a reduced size which becomes integrated smoothly into the urban fabric of small buildings and detached houses which develop on the northern part of the site. It presents itself as a great form defined by the topography and the geometry of the plot. At the heart of the building, a triangular courtyard is cut across by a public pedestrian walkway offering the local residents a direct contact with the daily activity of the school.
The internal organization of the school is based on a simple decision. All of the ordinary classes are arranged on a unique floor, favoring the meetings between students and teachers of the various sectors. The users of the school have several entrances generating multiple and varied courses towards the education places and the meeting points. The arrangement of the ordinary classrooms under the roof allows to offer plentiful natural light in the distribution and relaxation spaces thanks to the zenithal openings.
The gymnasium building is placed in the embankment of the Geneva-Lausanne train line. Half-buried, it presents itself as like two rectangluar volums parallel to the tracks which define a public space protected from the nuisances. The northern volume servesas the entrance fort he students and the sport companies). It also welcomes the teacher’s rooms and fitness rooms.
Both emerging buildings are bound on the floor below where the lockerrooms and two fitness rooms takes place.
The morphology of the school building is characterized by an angular plan similar to a triangle while its cross section is simple. The sports building presents a rectangular plan while the shape of its emergences is complex. Both buildings are bound by this inverted formal relation.
The new constructions resort to modest constructive methods. Their structure is essentially realized by reinforced concrete with the exception of wooden skeleton of the sports buildings roof. The envelope of the buildings, roofs and facades, are made of raw brushed aluminium. The materials are left raw and express a strong and robust mareriality, both inside and outside.
