For seven years, Collège Sainte-Anne sought ways to redefine its teaching methods to transform its five facilities into state-of-the-art learning spaces. Dorval Secondary School's new pavilion welcomed a first cohort at the start of the 2022 school year.
Published at 12:00 p.m.
It is the result of ambitious reflection led by Ugo Cavenaghi, Director General of Sainte-Anne College, and Isabelle Senécal, then Director of Educational Innovation. “We wanted multi-purpose rooms, brightness, an opening to the outside,” says the woman who now runs the school. The result is stimulating.
Designed by architect Pierre Thibault and Architecture 49, the carbon-free building is inspired by Icelandic, Dutch and Danish facilities visited by its research committee. Despite a gray January day, it is bathed in plenty of light. There are large window walls, few corridors and outdoor galleries surrounding the building on two floors. From everywhere you can see the canopy of trees, a neighborhood, the nearby river.
On the first level, the practice rooms are a hive of activity as students combine math calculations with the gym. It's similar to the energy in creative labs, where a few people, grouped around tables, work together to solve a problem. Upstairs, on the upper floor, there is silence despite the presence of students scattered throughout the open area. There are just six closed classes, an open library, and a number of alcoves and cubicles used for individual or team work.
Between these two floors, common areas are used for dining, relaxing or teaching. Large stalls are placed at the heart of the structure, allowing circulation between floors, but have also found other uses. Sitting on the cherry wood steps or propped up in beanbags, some students daydream while others chat or work. The room is later used by a teacher and her class for dictation.
Various possibilities
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The architect Pierre Thibault and the director of the Sainte-Anne College, Isabelle Senécal
The Sainte-Anne College floor plan offers various learning contexts. “At home we adopt different postures depending on the activity. You wouldn't read at a desk or on a kitchen chair, but in your living room. It’s the same here,” says Isabelle Senécal. Depending on the activities and within the same course, the student may therefore be invited to move from a closed class to the common area, from a cubicle to the stands. The configuration of courses and laboratories is also flexible.
Between two classes, the stands fill up with students. No bells rang. The excitement will be short and the noise level will be low, the university's director proudly announces, adding that life in these open spaces requires special and careful management.
“To change structures is to change culture,” said architect Frank Lloyd Wright. In this environment, students learn autonomy, adaptability and resourcefulness.
“We worked a lot on active teaching. For it to work, students need to be engaged in learning and to engage them, the tasks need to be meaningful,” notes Isabelle Sénécal. The rigidity of content, time and space is a straitjacket, she believes. Subjects taught in silos, fixed timetables and static learning attitudes are obstacles to the further development of teaching methods. “We want to make the framework more flexible. For example, by enabling teachers to work across disciplines, we save around 20% of time over the course of a year. We follow the ministry's program closely, but we can afford to enrich it. » In this emancipated vision of education, all places are tools for different development.