Externat Sacré-Cœur: When Design Becomes a Teaching Tool

At Externat Sacré-Cœur, Taktik design transforms a sports pavilion into a true living environment where each design intervention fosters learning, movement, creativity, and a sense of belonging

Can you learn through design? At the new sports pavilion of Externat Sacré-Cœur, the answer takes shape in every space. Spread across three levels, Taktik’s interventions transform the entrance hall, the first-floor circulation area, the multipurpose room, two art classrooms, and a rooftop terrace into genuine living environments. Created in collaboration with Atelier Bouré Therrien architectes, the 4,675 m² project far exceeds its sporting purpose. Graphic design, custom furniture, vegetation, flexible spaces, and outdoor furniture are all thoughtfully conceived as tools that encourage young people to move, collaborate, create, and make their environment their own. Here, design supports usage, stimulates interaction, and fully participates in the educational experience.

A Visual Identity That Nourishes Belonging

The journey begins at the entrance. A large illustration by Lucas Saenger features the school’s motto, “Towards the Summits,” in a vast hall bathed in light. Further along on the second floor, a series of graphic compositions accompany students in the multipurpose room and art classrooms, creating an immersive universe.

“We wanted students to feel like they’re entering a landscape that tells the story of the place. The murals draw inspiration from Rosemère’s rural character before urbanization, when Externat was surrounded by fields. By bringing some decorative elements out of the image—with foam blocks or the groundhog—we blur the boundaries between image and reality. Students become actors in this landscape themselves,” explains Noémie Giroux-Carpentier, environmental designer at Taktik.

The two new art classrooms extend this reflection. A mural with brushstroke effects welcomes students to traditional arts, while a pixelated composition marks the entrance to the digital arts classroom. Each graphic intervention reveals the purpose of the space before you even enter.

By giving each space its own identity, graphic design facilitates orientation, strengthens the sense of belonging, and helps create a stimulating environment where students enjoy evolving.

Furniture as a Learning Support

In this project, furniture is never static. Designed and manufactured to order by Taktik, it becomes a genuine pedagogical tool.

From the reception hall to the rooftop terrace, furniture forms the project’s connecting thread. In the reception area, a relaxation space can easily transform into a reception area or an occasional classroom. Transition zones on the first floor invite students to socialize between classes thanks to furniture allowing them to settle in various ways. On the second floor, in the multipurpose room, a large solid ash table hosts team projects before transforming into a ping-pong table. Inside the art classrooms, storage spaces structure the rooms while freeing up surfaces to allow different configurations. Mobile tables, large collaborative islands, varied seating, and integrated furniture give teachers the freedom to quickly adapt spaces to proposed activities.

Beyond their versatility, furniture pieces also give the project a warm identity through the generous use of solid wood and an organic form language inspired by nature.

A Living Environment That Stimulates Well-being

The pavilion adopts a global approach where interior design, graphics, furniture, and vegetation interact to create a living environment.

Natural light favors the integration of numerous plants that punctuate common spaces and lounges. This vegetal presence echoes the landscapes depicted in the murals and reinforces the biophilic character of the project.

Play also occupies an important place. Foam sculptures inspired by bushes represented in the graphic works can be moved by students to transform the space according to their wishes. An imposing yellow groundhog, quickly becoming one of the pavilion’s emblematic figures, invites sitting, discussing, and making the spaces one’s own.

So many interventions that encourage curiosity, exchanges, and the pleasure of inhabiting spaces.

Flexible Spaces That Evolve With School Life

One of the main challenges was offering maximum versatility in an optimized surface area. Throughout the project, spaces were designed to accommodate a multitude of scenarios.

The entrance lounge becomes alternately a relaxation area, cafeteria, reception room, or improvised classroom. The multipurpose room hosts meetings, games, educational activities, and collaborative work alike. Art classrooms have mobile tables, large islands, and centralized storage, allowing quick reconfiguration of spaces according to activities.

This flexibility allows the pavilion to naturally support the school’s daily life while offering great adaptive capacity for sporting and community events.

A Terrace That Gives Rise to a New Furniture Collection

The rooftop terrace constitutes one of the project’s particularities. “Initially, this roof was just a simple covering, but we convinced the client to transform it into a rooftop terrace with the architects’ support, favoring planting containers to green the space and offer direct outside access to art classrooms,” explains Noémie.

Completed with perennial plantings, an integrated irrigation system, and four Japanese maple trees destined to grow with generations of students, this space extends the pavilion’s experience onto the roof.

The rooftop terrace served as an experimental ground for the development of a new urban furniture collection by Taktik. Crafted from stainless steel, galvanized steel, and Douglas fir, the various tables and seating pieces were specifically developed to meet the requirements of the location, while establishing their own distinct formal identity—flexible enough to adapt to different landscapes and installation sites.

About Taktik design

Taktik design is a Montreal-based company that is close to people and attentive to its customers and their needs. The understanding of places and their functionalities is at the heart of their approach and concepts. Comprising a creative and passionate team, Taktik design constantly innovates to improve the use of spaces and to create unique worlds.

For Taktik, a successful space cannot be summed up by its aesthetics alone, but also in its ability to create a link between its users and the created environment.

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