It’s still hard to imagine what Roumois high school will look like with this bale of straw placed between two wooden planks. Fortunately, right next to it, a screen projects images, commented on by Christophe Bidaud, from the Rouen agency CBA. The school will have shape of a box and the architect claims this simplicity: “Simplicity is not a flaw in architecture. When you look at the Louvre building, it is a very simple building. I call it classic buildings and our high school is a classic building.”
A classic but environmentally virtuous building, with its wooden frame and its insulation by straw. The well-being of students and staff was also an important criterion in the design of the school, explains Christophe Bidaud: “First, wood is warm. And then, we organized the internal spaces to ensure that the site was sublime. The atrium is spread over two levels. We have games of walkways and a lot of light , thanks to glazed parts that are extremely generous for a high school.”
A high school focused on innovative energies
Three boarding school buildings will also be built on the site, which is 4 hectares. Because the establishment has the vocation ofwelcome 200 students from all over the world, educated in French high schools abroad. The President of the Normandy Region Hervé Morin prefers to speak of a campus, given what will be offered there: “It is a campus where we will do professional training. It is a campus where we will do higher education. And it is a campus in which we will be able to welcome students from French high schools abroad and who will therefore give an opening.
The school also wants to emphasize the training related to innovative energies, such as wind or green hydrogen. For Josette Simon, the mayor of Bourg Achard, this specificity will certainly encourage families to come and settle in Roumois: “These families are also looking for quality places so that their children can discover trades, why not train and then fly on their own in a career that they would have discovered here.”
As a bad student, I think we could hardly do worse! – Hervé Morin and his high school memories
The high school is waited for 40 years by the inhabitants. As Hervé Morin says, “we are going to allow the 1,000 kids in Roumois to no longer have to travel two hours by bus a day to go to school.” The President of the Region likes to recall that he had made this school a campaign commitment : “We had to convince a lot of resistance. Everyone explains to you that there is no longer any need for high schools in Normandy given the demographic decline. But Roumois is the area in Normandy that is gaining the most inhabitants. It was a commitment I made in 2015. Like what in politics, from time to time, we keep our word!
This laying of the first straw is, he continues smiling, “a good moment in the life of an elected official”. Much better than his high school memories : “I was not a good student, me! I had a very disturbed adolescence. I discovered the ways of school after the baccalaureate. As a bad student, I believe that we could hardly do worse!”
The opening of the Lycée du Roumois is announced at the back to school 2024.