Childcare Center

Architects Nicolas Heams and Benjamin Michel designed a family day care center that playing with color and interact with light, offers generous and sequenced areas.

The new building designed by Heams & Michel Architects in Tourrette Levens, includes a family day care of three units with a kitchen and communal facilities that will be managed by the municipality and the SIVOM Val de Banquière. Not far around the city of Nice, the village of Tourrette-Levens is perched on the heights of the hinterland. The topography has two different slopes: a steep slope to the wild vegetation in the upper part and a false-flat shape parking at its lower end. It is bounded by a road that overhangs it on the upper part and by a path that is located on the lower part. From the road, one can discover the view of the valley and surrounding mountains that wrap the locality and the project wanted to underline this aspect.
On top and above: Heams & Michel Architects, Childcare Center, Tourrette Levens, France, 2013
“We took advantage of the natural slope of the land to manage the programatic mix on two distinct levels”, Nicolas Heams and Benjamin Michel explain. “The communal spaces are distributed from the level of the road and open fully to an outdoor public space. Cantilevered over the ground floor, the volume of the room stands out for its material and its moldings. It contains the program related to early childhood.” The false-flat shape parking and the outside staircase provide access to the nursery and is a link between the two levels. The delivery access is at the opposite, while the building is anchored to the bottom of the slope of the hill, absorbing some of the slope of the land. Its roof planted and cut by three colorful patios becomes a natural extension of the surrounding landscape.
Heams & Michel Architects, Childcare Center, Tourrette Levens, France, 2013

“Our intention was to provide protective and protected areas for the comfort and safety of children”, the architects say, “but also for the tranquility of the parents. This research to internalize spaces has led us to propose a spatial device that functions as an enclosure.” The general volume is a compact parallelepiped where three patios bring light and allows a natural ventilation of the round local devices.

 

Two patios are dedicated to outdoor spaces for children and the size depends on the year of nursery school: the smaller that are limited in their movement because of their young age have an outdoor space, while second and third year kids who perform the same activities share a larger outside. In this sense, instead of opening up to the landscape like a standard schoolyard, these places open to the living units. The surrounding space is set "behind the scenes", while the third patio leads light to the rooms on the ground floor. The façade with opaque print is covered with a skin of perforated concrete that lets in natural light coming from the outside.

 

Heams & Michel Architects, Childcare Center, Tourrette Levens, France, 2013

“Imagining a pole of early childhood, we wanted to offer generous and sequenced areas where light penetrates in order to remove any impression of anxiety, giving parents time to come and separate from their child”. The color is a structural element of the architectural project: cool shades for communal spaces and a warm color palette for the local early childhood.

 

 

Heams & Michel Architects, Childcare Center, Tourrette Levens, France, 2013

Heams & Michel Architects: Childcare Center
Destination
: nursery and communal premises
Location:
Tourrette Levens (Alpes – Maritimes), France
Architects
: Nicolas Heams, Benjamin Michel
Engineers: GL Ingénierie, Arwytec
Artists
: André Jaume, Nicole Brousse, Serge Megtert,
Clients
: Ville de Tourrette Levens and SIVOM du Val de Banquière
Project area
: 1 050 sqm
Year:
2013.

Latest on News

Latest on Domus

China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram