Emerging from a cocoon

With its clean lines and minimalist geometry, Guilhermy College in Toulouse, focuses on the essentials. The school wraps itself around two hundred-year-old cedar trees, cocooning and nurturing them and the 600 pupils it is now housing.

Part of the bigger picture

The brick base of the school firmly grounds the structure within its surroundings, creating a seamless connection with the adjacent vegetation.

To enliven the ground-level façades, REC architects opted for a sand-coloured facing brick that reflects the shade of the local clay soil, harmonising with the school’s forecourt. Even though just one tone is used, the façade does not have a monochrome effect, since the brick has three subtle tonal variations, achieved through varying degrees of abrasion.

A vibrant learning environment

These nuances bring vibrancy to the building, with its appearance shifting in response to daylight. At both ends, two solid brick mashrabiyas allow natural light to filter through while maintaining continuity across the façade, giving the impression that the terracotta elements are stretched to reveal voids.

The perforations narrow or widen as they approach or move away from the structural posts, which are ingeniously concealed beneath the facing brick. An acute sense of detail hidden beneath an apparent simplicity whose understated elegance catches the eye at first glance.

Subtle variations for a unique result

“We didn’t want to use multiple shades on the façade, but rather aimed for a subtle interplay of nuances, creating a natural, random effect without repetition. Terreal offered us a technical solution to achieve these subtle variations: Sandblasting the terracotta elements with different degrees of abrasion, then mixing them on the façade. And it worked! As a bonus, we noticed that the base of the building appears to change depending on the weather.

The porosity of the brickwork creates a play of shadows, resulting in unexpected shifts in colour. You can feel that the building is alive. We’re using terracotta more and more in our projects. It’s a robust material with a strong identity that’s easy to maintain and never goes out of fashion. Brick buildings have a strong heritage dimension, a little extra soul that is unequalled. They always tell a story,” explain the architects at REC Architecture.