In a profoundly urban and rapidly changing environment, the architecture of learning spaces supports part of the physical, cultural and intellectual development of the generations that follow us. Architecture greatly influences the environment in which children learn, and indeed designs the space which form the centre of their community life. The Grandir Nature building takes the desire for a joyful childhood and orientates it towards nature, sharing and personal learning.

Living in the city should not be an obstacle: biodiversity is everywhere in the built environment, from vegetable gardens to courtyards and the landscaped spaces surrounding schools.

The building turns and wraps around either side of a central hollow, onto which the ground floors of the nursery school and canteen spill out. The space evokes a nest, in which the children can grow in contact with one another under the gentle surveillance of surrounding adults. The space is a cocoon, a shelter, where the children are protected from the outside world and the sun by thick walls, but through which they can observe it in complete safety.

As their education progresses children evolve towards more autonomy and climb the central ramp of the building to the elementary classes, where a wide view of the sky is visible – an allegory for vast future possibilities. The outdoor spaces here run over two levels and the garden areas into which they integrate allow children to discover the diversity and abundance of the living world in which they fit.

The elementary classes, grouped on levels 2, 3 and 4 in a long wooden volume covered with terracotta, evoke in the imagination the communal hut: here they can imagine, experiment, collaborate and invent.