The project is part of a biodiversity network operating across multiple territorial scales. At the neighborhood level, its design ensures the continuity of ecological corridors while connecting to broader areas of influence, ranging from urban parks located along the municipal boundaries and nearby river islands to the vast forests of western Paris. Due to its location within a dense urban fabric, the future school’s landscape can serve as a valuable biodiversity stepping stone.
Born from an innovative vision, the project takes on the challenge of creating a rooftop ecosystem: a primary natural environment that extends into the texture of an inhabited enclosure wall. The building thus becomes an extruded fragment of territory, a vertical landscape where native nature can develop freely. This landscape is designed to support living organisms both on the roof—conceived as a single fertile surface of 2,500 m²—and on the façades. These have been carefully designed so that water runoff and surface relief create a maximum number of microhabitats, fostering the greatest possible diversity of species. This innovative experiment addresses the question of habitat for the non-human species with whom we share our living environments, including within urban areas.
The landscape project is organized around several key components:
A forest core: The center of the green roof is built on a one-meter-deep substrate layer and contains 220 trees, which now reach heights of between 10 and 15 meters. This high vegetation density provides optimal shelter conditions for many bird species.
A belt of shrubs and understory vegetation: Acting as a transition between the forest and the meadow, this peripheral zone surrounds the forest core. Vegetation height gradually decreases according to substrate depth. This intermediate belt protects the forest core while leading progressively toward meadow habitats. It includes 350 trees and shrubs from 18 different species, most of them berry-producing. For birds, this shrub layer provides an abundant food source; from an educational perspective, it also enables students to study the landscape’s food webs.
The mesophilic meadow: This habitat plays a major role within the ecosystem by supporting a wide diversity of insects. Since 2020, efforts to enhance its ecological value have been carried out through ecological engineering techniques. Every two years, habitat enrichment operations—including mowing, reseeding, and direct vegetation establishment—are undertaken with the participation of students.
The enclosure wall and its concrete blocks: Together they form a living envelope. This prefabricated structure is inspired by traditional stone walls, characterized by their numerous crevices, cavities, and cracks. These irregularities create favorable conditions for the development of many animal and plant species. The requirements for accommodating living organisms directly influence the thickness of the blocks and, consequently, the overall form of the enclosure.
The School of Biodiversity therefore functions as a living system at the heart of the city, providing an opportunity to experiment with new forms of urban ecological balance. In 2021, a comprehensive ecological survey conducted by Aurélien Huguet Écologie and Ecolo GIE recorded more than 350 species on the school grounds. The project stands as a pioneering living laboratory, demonstrating positive outcomes on human, environmental, and social levels.
Data
Landscape Architecture: ChartierDalix ⸱ serp
Other design offices involved: A.E.U. (Ecologue), Biodiversita (Biodiversité)
Photo credits: Photos ©Yann Monel, ©Takuji SHimmura, ©Myr Muratet, ©Serp
