Tautem has designed the new Antoine de Ruffi school in the Mediterranée district of Marseille as a child-friendly and sustainable building.
The entrance to the new Mediterranée district is marked by a new school complex by Tautem Architekten. From here, the view is of both the suburbs of Marseille and the harbor, where the towers by Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid rise up.
The new Antoine de Ruffi school complex is situated in a strategically significant location at the entrance to the new Euroméditerranée district. From here, the view extends as far as the suburbs of Marseille with its old warehouses, silos, soap factories and large apartment blocks from the 1970s. In the other direction, the port of Marseille with its large ships comes into view, as do the high-rise buildings by Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel and a highway viaduct. Mediterranée extends to the south, where new residential buildings and a business district are being built. The Antoine de Ruffi school complex by Tautem forms the prelude to this.
The challenge in designing a school for three to eleven-year-old children is to create a place that children enjoy going to. The learning environment in the Antoine de Ruffi School should therefore welcome them openly on the one hand and offer them a protected environment on the other. The ergonomics and comfort of the school are geared towards the size of the children, down to the smallest detail. In addition to the child-friendly design of the Antoine de Ruffi School, the architects at Tautem were keen to create a powerful symbolism for the building. They wanted to emphasize the position and importance of the public institution through monumentality and solidity. The designers only had a narrow plot of land at their disposal. They therefore arranged the kindergarten on the first floor around an inner courtyard and the elementary school and play areas on the levels above. Incidentally, the architects from the Tautem office also understand this stacking quite symbolically.
The Antoine de Ruffi School is surrounded by streets on three sides. The high-rise buildings in the immediate vicinity are up to 17 storeys high. The school building counters this with deep, embrasure-like window openings that keep out the noise of the city. On the fourth side, towards the harbor, the school presents itself with a permeable colonnade. The homogeneous appearance of the school complex results from the reduced number of materials. The architects at Tautem deliberately worked with only a few architectural and technical components to ensure simplicity, durability and cost-effective building maintenance. In addition, the aim was to emit as little CO2 as possible during construction.
Built on a grid of 120 centimetres, the colonnade façade consists of hexagonal columns. They not only raise the building visually, but also provide protection from the sun from the east and west. The shadow play resulting from this design changes over the course of the days and seasons and extends into the inner courtyard with its play area. The façades facing Avenue Salengro and Rue Urbain V also have a protective function. They are 100 centimetres thick and form a double-skin wall with an insulating layer. On the side where the school adjoins the neighboring building block, the façade provides connections. The new building comes into contact with its neighbors via large sliding metal doors. This permeability continues into the classrooms on the upper floors. The classrooms open out onto deep balconies where lessons can take place in the fresh air.
In contrast to the outer skin, Tautem has designed the interiors of the school complex to be colorful and cheerful. In doing so, they have created a warm, enveloping and child-friendly universe that gives the little ones the feeling of living in a protected, peaceful cocoon. The construction of the entire building with beams and columns allows for an open floor plan and gives it a flowing atmosphere. This basic structure also allows the school to be modified as usage requirements change.
Tautem has furnished the two entrance halls with large wooden benches and also paneled the walls up to the paneled ceiling with wood. Tautem used this organically grown larch wood from the Alps not only for most of the walls, but also for the built-in furniture, benches, shelves and cupboards. Large, ring-shaped lamps emphasize the volume of the room.
The Antoine de Ruffi school complex is the first building in Marseille to be recognized as a Bâtiments Durables Méditerranéens, a sustainable Mediterranean building. The school building owes this recognition primarily to its bio-climatically sensitive design. The use of low-carbon concrete also contributes to this. This is particularly environmentally friendly and was produced on site in the middle of the inner courtyard.
Bold colors: Two school extensions by Palenzvela Architects in Andalusia work with colorful ceramic facades.
