The Vufflantine crèche is a project of intensification of a school site. With a zero land take approach, we decided to raise part of the existing school, which dates back to 1990, rather than build on the surrounding open land as it was originally planned.

The project fits between the two existing buildings and connects them in an elegant way, using the geometry of the existing roofs and adapting to the constraints of the façades. It creates a soft space that opens out onto the landscape and natural light, like a nest in a tree that provides shelter for the children’s first moments of life.

The constraints of the site led to a flexible, integrated geometry that resulted in the design of a complex framework, all the timber for which was sourced from the forests of the local community, anchoring the project in a local material history, but also reducing the construction’s embodied energy.