The European Commission and the Mies van der Rohe Foundation have announced that the Emerging Architecture 2019 has been awarded to the Toulouse-based studio BAST for their school cafeteria in Montbrun-Bocage, Haute-Garonne, near the French Pyrenees, an extension of a small village school which closes the playground physically but not visually.

The canteen is the extension of the existing school for 61 pupils that physically but not visually fences the courtyard. The Foundation stated that the jury was drawn by the extremely precise implementation and design decisions which make the refectory a remarkable project built on a relatively small budget. 

"The work was done with extreme humbleness, taking into account the context of the village and the immediate landscape, thereby creating a very respectful work of architecture," the jury added.

As Benjamin Aubry, architect and expert of the EU Mies Award expressed, the simplicity of its devices and construction offers generous space, excellent capacity of use and immense poetry.

Named E26 (school refectory), the new refectory building lands on a new forecourt and is limited by the road. The ground floor level of the existing school becomes the reference 0.00 level for the forecourt and the refectory so that all the buildings are at the same height.

The cafeteria building is entirely made of wood: Cross Laminated Timer (CLT) wood panels, structural CLT roof panels. Isolated from the outside, the exterior cladding is also larch wood panels.

The new project gives the opportunity to restore the same level of operation to buildings, generates a step that can benefit new educational activities and uses a rational and very fast construction system on site allowing to release a maximum of glazed volumes to keep the buildings through views and benefit from maximum natural light indoors.

The winners will be celebrated at the EU Mies Award Day on May 7 in Barcelona. The event will include the opening of the "EU Mies Award 2019 exhibition" that will show models, texts, videos, sketches and drawings of the 40 shortlisted works and a summary of all 383 nominees, the presentation of the EU Mies Award 2019 catalogue and the app; the "EU Mies Talks" on ‘Architecture for the Community’ and ‘Contemporary architecture and heritage’. 

These talks will allow Winners, Finalists, shortlisted, clients, architecture media and people interested to debate on the emerging topics highlighted by the Jury.

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The events also include the Awards Ceremony at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion at 18:30h and a celebration that will also initiate the Barcelona Architecture Week and the EU Mies Award Architecture Days in which the 4 Finalist works, the Winner and the Emerging Architect as well as some of the shortlisted buildings will organize activities to bring the architecture closer to the public.

The "EU Mies Award 2019 exhibition" will embark on its tour around Europe with an opening at BOZAR, Brussels on September 13 and will continue to other cities in 2019 and 2020.

Transformation Of 530 Homes - Grand Parc Bordeaux designed by Lacaton & Vassal Architectes, Frédéric Druot Architecture and Christophe Hutin Architecture has won the 2019 Mies van der Rohe Award. 

All images © BLAST 

> via Mies van der Rohe Foundation