L’Alliance Project in Dunkirk: Integrating Educational and Social Spaces with the Environment
L’Alliance Project in Dunkirk: A Modular School Design
TANK has completed the “L’Alliance” project, a modular school complex located in the city of Dunkirk, northern France. This project offers a model for modern school planning that balances educational and social functions, with a focus on diversifying spaces to meet the varied needs of its users.
Interior Planning and Educational Functions
The building consists of a kindergarten with seven classrooms and a primary school with eight classrooms. These classrooms are designed to provide a flexible learning environment, allowing transitions between individual and group activities, which enhances student interaction and encourages active learning.
Common and Community Spaces
The project includes an Agora courtyard, serving as a social hub for school gatherings, alongside a cafeteria and a community center. A multipurpose hall was also created, which can be divided into smaller spaces to accommodate various events, allowing dynamic use of the area.
Digital and Administrative Facilities
The complex also features a Cybercenter and administrative offices, reflecting the integration of modern infrastructure to support both educational and administrative operations. In addition, a civic hall is provided to host official and community activities, reinforcing the school’s role as an effective local hub.
Outdoor Spaces
The design extends beyond indoor buildings to include varied outdoor areas that encourage movement and recreational activities, providing a comprehensive learning environment that combines education, social interaction, and relaxation.
The Site and Its Role in Urban Dialogue
The project site was carefully selected to act as an active element in the neighborhood’s urban dialogue. The project establishes a connection between the surrounding districts, facilitating a smooth transition between different spaces. Through this design, the role of the project extends beyond the building itself to exert a broader influence on the surrounding built environment.
Enhancing the Quality of Public Spaces
The project aims to improve the quality of public spaces, making areas for gathering and interaction more attractive to residents. This approach reflects an architectural understanding that links educational and social functions and emphasizes the importance of integrating the school into the neighborhood’s fabric in a holistic way.
The Garden and Its Role in Local Identity
Within the project, a one-hectare garden was created, serving as a central green space that supports local belonging and reinforces the identity of the place. This garden not only provides areas for relaxation and recreation but also plays a key role in strengthening community bonds among neighborhood residents.
Architectural Fluidity
The architecture of the project is characterized by smoothness and fluidity, where each space unfolds naturally, reflecting a balance between disciplined simplicity and precise spatial complexity. This design approach allows users to easily understand the layout while providing a gradual discovery experience of every part of the building.
The Central Courtyard and Spatial Interaction
The plan is centered around a sculpted central courtyard with a gentle curve, around which classrooms twist and wrap in a deliberate manner. This arrangement creates a dynamic interplay between interior and exterior spaces: some classrooms open to the city, offering panoramic views, while others block the scene, encouraging users to explore their own private space.
Agora with Landscaped Coordination
The school and community center are accessed via an agora with coordinated landscaping, serving as a partially sheltered urban promenade. This space is characterized by southern sun exposure and open views for passersby, enhancing the sense of openness and the connection between the school and its surrounding neighborhood.
Multipurpose Halls and Community Engagement
At the ground level, a multipurpose hall connected to the school’s dining areas serves both the school and the surrounding neighborhood. This hall is designed to open directly onto the street, becoming a vibrant interaction point that embodies the building’s role as a social hub within the new district.
Spatial Distribution and Privacy
At the same time, the kindergarten retreats towards a private inner courtyard, ensuring a safe and quiet environment for young children. The upper floor opens outward to accommodate the primary school spaces and community center, providing a balance between openness to the surrounding environment and the privacy needed for educational activities.
Gardens and Courtyards: Enhancing Interaction with Nature
The project features a large communal garden and an elevated courtyard, offering opportunities for gathering and interaction with nature. The one-hectare site extends into a comprehensive garden where pathways intersect and converge, while maintaining precise distances between densely planted areas and public spaces. This layout creates a subtle balance between openness and privacy, enhancing the user experience in engaging with the surrounding environment.
Integration of Architecture and Landscape
The project demonstrates a seamless integration between architecture and landscape, with green spaces extending into the front courtyard, encouraging movement and interaction among users. This integration reinforces the renewed presence of the historic Louis XIV district and creates a visual and functional link between the building and its surrounding environment.
Building Form and Openness
The building is characterized by calmness and fluidity, interacting harmoniously with its urban surroundings. Transparent façades enhance openness, attracting families to the community center, while the school remains a protected and serene entity within its own domain, maintaining educational privacy.
Architecture and Environmental Continuity
Through this interplay between urban character and nature, the architecture supports environmental continuity and clearly highlights its educational function. The design demonstrates how built and green spaces can work together to offer a comprehensive user experience that combines learning, social interaction, and environmental openness.
The Role of Materials and Proportions in Design
Materials and proportions play a central role in shaping the user experience within the project. Carefully considered textures and dimensions convey a balanced presence, facilitating a natural approach to the building while providing a sense of comfort and harmony between people and space.
The Exterior Façade and Project Context
The exterior façade clearly defines the building’s position within its surrounding context while maintaining visual harmony with the environment. This arrangement strengthens the connection between the building and the neighborhood, making the architecture an integral part of the urban fabric rather than an isolated element.
Environmental Sensitivity and Integration with Place
The project harmonizes with its changing urban context, preserving land and vegetation, and expressing a calm, lasting sensitivity toward the environment and place. This approach reflects the design’s commitment to sustainability and demonstrates how architecture can positively interact with its natural and social surroundings.
Sustainability and Material Selection
The project reflects a clear commitment to sustainability principles through the careful selection of materials, avoiding products that contain endocrine-disrupting substances. The sustainable approach also emphasizes the exclusive use of bio-based materials, which prioritize human health while preserving the environment.
Façades and the Balance Between Architecture and Nature
The façades are clad in wood coated with linseed oil paint, reflecting a design philosophy that seeks to achieve maximum impact with minimal resources. This choice goes beyond aesthetics, creating a meaningful dialogue between the building and the educational programs within, and highlighting the relationship between design and the surrounding environment.
Integration of Innovation and the Urban Environment
This approach harmonizes with the project’s context and demonstrates the balance between architectural innovation and respect for nature, establishing a sustainable and balanced architectural style. It also reinforces the local identity of the historic Louis XIV district in Dunkirk, providing a model for future projects that integrate sustainability with educational and social functions.
✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight
The L’Alliance project can be considered a clear example of integrating educational and social spaces with the surrounding environment. It demonstrates attention to human scale and the functional distribution of schools and community facilities. On one hand, this arrangement provides opportunities for a gradual spatial experience and interaction between students and the community, representing a tangible positive value in terms of everyday use.
However, a deeper examination of the overall structure and urban planning reveals certain reservations. Open pathways and large gardens may provide a sense of openness, but at the same time, they may lack clear guidance for user circulation, making some spaces less legible in terms of function for new visitors or families unfamiliar with the internal layout of the complex. Additionally, the harmony with the neighborhood’s urban context appears limited in certain areas, as the project stands out clearly within the general plan without offering concrete solutions for future expansion or potential changes in community use.
On the other hand, practitioners in architecture can benefit from the project as a case study in the distribution of multifunctional spaces and the interaction between architecture and nature, particularly concerning gardens and elevated courtyards. The experience illustrates how to achieve a balance between openness and privacy, while also highlighting the importance of considering circulation flow and functional orientation when designing integrated educational projects.
