We were invited to design an extension for the Liceo Franco Mexicano, an elementary school located in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. The school was seeking to create a new space tailored to children with spaces that would enhance their ways of learning, imagining, and playing. From the beginning, we understood this as an opportunity to explore how architecture could respond to early childhood through materiality, form, and connection to the environment.
We chose to work with locally sourced materials, allowing for an approach that could also integrate space as a tool for learning together. Rammed earth became the central element of our construction system, both for its environmental performance and its tactile richness. The building was organized into 8x8-meter modules—compact structures whose strategic placement generated a sequence of open and semi-open spaces.
Each module opens toward a patio, creating fluid transitions between inside and outside. These outdoor spaces were essential, not only as extensions of the classrooms but as learning environments in themselves. Our intention was to encourage direct contact with nature through a palette of textures, colors, and shifting light. At the heart of the complex, a single tree anchors the site—its presence linking all modules together while offering shade, scale, and a sense of shared center.
In designing École Maternelle, we aimed to construct not just a building, but a world scaled to the imagination and curiosity of its youngest inhabitants, a place where learning begins through experience.
