College Robert Badinter / Coldefy

French architecture studio Coldefy, in collaboration with Relief Architecture, has completed the 650-pupil Robert Badinter Secondary School, the first timber-framed school in northern France. The school is located on a former railyard site, adjacent to the city's train station and a ten-minute walk from the town centre. The design and location of the new school is part of an urban renewal project that seeks to create a consolidated public transportation hub complemented by lively civic amenities. Located on the site of the city's Vauban fortifications moat, the site also contained catiches – subterranean chalk quarries – which had to be filled in to stabilise the ground prior to construction.