Vieux Pays Primary School
Sartrouville (78)

Siting

Adjacent to the municipal day nursery, the school complex unfurls in a continuous ribbon around a protected playground, fulfilling the ambition to embed a true 'garden school' within the neighborhood.
The elementary school is elevated on the first floor like a belvedere, granting every classroom unobstructed views across the Seine Valley and optimal daylight. The architecture combines contemporary sobriety with traditional, enduring materials: a timber roof structure rests on an envelope of massive load-bearing and semi-load-bearing regional limestone (pierre d'Île-de-France).
The generously glazed south-facing facade is shaded by a delicate golden metal lattice. Playgrounds are embedded in an overall master plan that unifies architecture and landscape. The elementary courtyard is shielded from public space by a stone boundary wall punctuated by landscaped openings protected by the same decorative metal mesh.