Templar Quarters and the School of Elements: Ylé's Vision

As part of the École des Éléments project—which includes a preschool, a primary school, and a daycare center—the architects propose a comprehensive renovation and restructuring of the Templiers district, centered around a new public square, to create a cohesive whole with the existing parks and facilities. The approach—summarized in three words: conserve, improve, preserve—involves an urban planning strategy that incorporates public space, vegetation, and architecture. Thus, "garden streets" connect the spaces throughout the district and, designed as green corridors, transform the street into an active public space.

The "School of Elements"—conceived as pavilions open to the neighborhood, on a child's scale, and divided in the center by a pedestrian alley—is itself a structuring landscaped space. This alley, a veritable green spine, connects the preschool and elementary school, opening up the entrances while distancing them from the roads. It creates permeability in a neighborhood that is sometimes isolated. Connected to this new urban network, the school's shared facilities (cafeteria, multipurpose room, covered playground) are open to a variety of uses outside of school hours.

New housing units complement the urban fabric, promoting residential development, diversifying housing types, and fostering social mix. The agency proposes identifying new land reserves by judiciously densifying the spaces left within a sometimes sparse urban fabric. Thus, like an inhabited landscape, the school becomes an educational, green, and community ecosystem at the heart of the Templiers district.

Technical specifications

• Client: City of Coulommiers
• Status: Not a winner
• Surface: 7.122 m²
• Cost: €21.5 million excluding VAT
• Performance: Biomimicry approach — Level 3 bio-sourced building — Natural ventilation by solar chimneys — Non-load-bearing cob (mixture of straw and raw earth) on the facade in a timber frame — Timber structure.
• Team: Ylé (lead architect) — Oteis (BET TCE) — Zefco (environmental design), Eco+Construire (economist), Djao Rakitine (landscape architect) — BEGC (kitchen designer) — Peutz (acoustics) — Alphaville (programming), — Camille Alfada (consultation and user control).
• Heritage: To be integrated into a heritage building, characteristic of military barracks.