Gradignan School
GRADIGNAN SCHOOL
Ateliers Mathieu Laporte, Fagart & Fontana
ARCHITECTS
Ateliers Mathieu Laporte, Fagart & Fontana
LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Bassinet Turquin Paysage
DESIGN TEAM
Fagart & Fontana, Ateliers Mathieu Laporte, Lafourcade Rouquette
ACOUSTICS
Cabinet Conseil Vincent Hedont
ENGINEERING DESIGN
Cetab
AREA
3700 m²
YEAR
2025
LOCATION
Gradignan, France
CATEGORY
Elementary & Middle School
English description provided by the architects.
A SCHOOL COMPLEX ROOTED IN ITS LOCAL CONTEXT
The school complex is located at the heart of Gradignan, a town in south-western France near Bordeaux, within the city's "park city" concept.
It sits at the meeting point between the Parc du Repos Maternelle and a new residential neighbourhood. Conceived as a place for everyday life at a child's scale, the project brings together landscape integration, educational ambition, and sustainable construction.
Over the decades, Gradignan has been shaped around a network of parks that structures the daily lives of its residents. This distinctive identity forms the starting point of the project. The school integrates naturally into its surroundings through two large intersecting zinc roofs, which provide generous protection for both indoor and outdoor spaces.
Inspired by traditional horizontal constructions, this architectural language creates a building that is recognisable, familiar, and protective. It is perfectly suited to the world of childhood, while maintaining a strong dialogue with the surrounding landscape.
A CLEAR AND WELCOMING LAYOUT
The project is organized around two complementary roofs.
A long, low roof gently follows the depth of the site from Avenue Charles-et-Émile-Lestage and houses the nursery school.
A second, higher perpendicular roof links the new neighbourhood to the park and accommodates the primary school and the multipurpose hall.
Three main entrances, comfortably sheltered by the roof overhangs, make access intuitive and welcoming.
The multipurpose hall, open in the evenings and at weekends, strengthens the role of the school complex as a local community facility.
The project extends the park into the site. The landscape reaches right up to the façades: existing trees are preserved, site boundaries are shaped by planted swales, and the natural topography is respected in order to maintain the living conditions of the vegetation.
Two playgrounds, designed to suit children's activities, are formed within this natural continuity. A teaching garden, irrigated by rainwater collected from the roofs, extends the neighbourhood forecourt.
A PLACE OF LEARNING FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
Conceived as an essential piece of public infrastructure, the school complex embodies a 21st-century approach to education: rooted in its local context, open to nature, and designed to support children from nursery level through to the end of primary school.
Circulation routes are simple and easy to read, shared spaces encourage flexible use, and the materials—wood, steel, aluminium, and timber—ensure durability, comfort, and ease of maintenance.
To guarantee quality, cost control, and adherence to construction schedules, the project is based on a hybrid construction system combining prefabricated modules with elements assembled off-site.
This approach brings together robustness, elegance, and environmental performance, while offering an architecture that balances local tradition with contemporary design.
The Gradignan school complex is thus conceived as a protective, poetic, and sustainable place, where architecture, landscape, and pedagogy come together to support future generations.
