Photography by Stéphane Brügger
To meet the growing demands of Montréal’s Ahuntsic-Cartierville Borough, the school expansion added three new floors, which include nine classrooms, a kindergarten, a daycare service and a gymnasium built around a vast central staircase covered in natural light and colours and an open and dynamic entrance hall that creates a generous and friendly transition between the neighbourhood, the daycare service, and the schoolyard. A series of subtractions sculpt this ground floor volume to define significant and functional places, namely: the new reception hall and its large exterior forecourt; the daycare service connected to both the street and the schoolyard; as well as the gymnasium. Located in the centre of the new enlarged school, a central hall acts as a hub for traffic and links between floors, between the neighbourhood and the schoolyard.