Aeby Perneger & Associés

Description

The new Couchant school complex in Nyon (Vaud, Switzerland) contains a primary school for 480 students, extracurricular spaces for 60 children, a music school and medical services, all in the same building. This composite programme is located on an urban plot that enriches the public spaces in its vicinity. The articulation of the volumes reflects the organisation of the different elements of the programme and ensures they have separate access points. The volumetric composition varies in height due to the creation of a series of consecutive terraces. This fragmented shape reacts to the context, offering partial perspectives and a changing scale. In the centre of the ground floor is the partially sunken gymnastics hall that separates the entrance of the primary school from the entrance to the extracurricular activities area. On the first floor, the primary school and the music school share a sports and multi-purpose hall while preserving their functional independence. On the second and third floors are the remaining classrooms. People moving around the school circulate around the main staircase. Views onto the gym, the courtyard or the green terraces enhance the corridors of the different storeys.
On a formal level the building responds to differing urban scales, starting from a street front with four storeys which then reduces to a volume of two floors on the recreational side. Its dark and striated metallic façade provides a vibrant echo to the vegetation.