Périchaux Early Childhood Center
Architect: gRamillien Architecture SARL
Location: Paris, France
Type: Early Childhood Center
Year: 2025
Photographs: Pascal Amoyel
The following description is courtesy of the architects. Connected to the new public garden, the Périchaux toddler center with its new square and alleyway, will help requalify the Lefebvre-Périchaux-Brancion residential complex and enhance its landscaped open spaces.
While the external geometry of the building sequences the public spaces and their perspectives from Boulevard Lefebvre towards the heart of the block, its internal geometry creates a protected interior garden in this dense environment of high-rise buildings.
This enclosed garden – hortus conclusus – preserves the site’s three major trees and enhances its open-ground quality. It forms an oasis of freshness and a biological reserve for small birds, insects and flora in the heart of the dense city. It’s an unspoiled setting for children and families using the daycare to discover, as well as the landscape for the residents overlooking it.
Surrounding the diamond-shaped garden, the building forms a cloister composed of an angled figure culminating at the first floor, and a low wing at the ground floor backing onto the party wall. On either side of the western corner, the two facilities – daycare and maternal and child protection center – address the residence and the town symmetrically.
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The walk-through lobbies of these facilities create a play of depth and transparency from the public spaces to the interior garden. The attic bends at an angle to reveal the continuity of the two public spaces.
The maternal and child protection center is on one level in the south-west wing, while the daycare is on two levels. On the ground floor, the reception units for non-walking babies are organized around a courtyard immersed in the heart of the garden. Upstairs, the mezzanine distributes the two wings for the older and walking toddlers, leading to an immense playground on the roof. Partly planted, the terrace extends the landscape of the ground floor in the form of a hanging garden dedicated exclusively to children.
Above its white brick base, the building is entirely made of wood. The shed-shaped, zinc-covered roofs collect rainwater in the garden and provide natural ventilation for the reception units and secure over-ventilation at night. The generously glazed facades, clad in vertical wood cladding, reveal the structural framework through their spines.
Two white brick chimneys indicate the superposition of the publics facilities with the residence’s preserved underground parking lot and the integrated redesign of its access.
Project Details
- Architect: Guillaume Ramillien Architecture SARL, Guillaume Ramillien
- Project Team: Thibault Girardi, Naïs Campedel, Théophile Bianciotto, Marc Rousseau
- Landscape: Bloom (landscape)
- Fluids and HQE: bet AI-Environment
- Structures: bet EVP
- Economy: bet CS2N
- Client: Paris Habitat OPH
- Program: Early Childhood Center
- Location: Paris, France
- Year: 2017 – 2024
- Photography: Pascal Amoyel
