The new Bonnevoie technical college is designed to accommodate 2,200 students and 200 teachers offering education in a wide range of professional disciplines. What makes it special as a technical school is that it offers a wide range of technical and vocational courses in a wide variety of fields, from lower secondary to adult vocational training. It has to offer a very wide range of teaching facilities in addition to the standard lycée curriculum.
The high school includes food workshops for butchery, charcuterie, bakery, and pastry, as well as catering and professional workshops with restaurant schools where all aspects of the catering and service professions are taught. There are also workshops for ironwork, electricity and electronics.
Finally, it includes a sports centre with a swimming pool, quadruple indoor sports pitches, a dojo and a fitness room.
Together with the existing technical college, the new programme forms the Bonnevoie School Campus. The layout of the site encourages active mobility and links between neighbourhoods. It is entirely secure, with controlled access for motor vehicles and deliveries on the periphery opposite the pedestrian entrances to the site.
The programme is divided into 3 groups of buildings: the sports centre, the high school with common infrastructure and food workshops, and finally the metal and electrical workshops. The division into three makes it possible to optimise construction to suit the characteristics and requirements of each part of the programme. The major functions are grouped together by zones of similar constraints, clearly distinct from each other, allowing for better day-to-day management and optimised use.
The project also incorporates a particular pedagogical vision, with meeting places at each level to stimulate interdisciplinary exchanges, facilitating the flow of users and cooperation between students at the heart of the complex.
A two-level atrium brings together all the school’s common functions. Large staircases form tiers where students can gather at the heart of the project. The interconnection of the common functions – dining halls, multi-purpose hall, foyer – enables a number of synergies to be created.
The post-and-slab structures, in concrete or wood, are designed to give the buildings optimum flexibility to meet the constantly changing needs of the programme. The circularity of building components and elements is all the more important given their short life cycle and the likelihood of them being modified. For example, the façades are made of prefabricated timber-framed elements, the interior partitions and finishing touches are designed to be dismantled and reused, and the technical systems are visible and accessible to facilitate their development and maintenance.
Particular attention has been paid to the organisation of the first years of study into “clusters”, to encourage the integration and cohesion of the new young students and ease their transition into this new stage of schooling that is the lycée.
