When high school students and architecture students work hand in hand

As part of the "Off-Site" workshop currently taking place in Jumilhac-le-Grand, students from the National School of Architecture in Clermont-Ferrand returned to spend a week in the town to create street furniture on-site. Friday was dedicated to a collaborative project between the students and middle school students from Châlus.

Rethinking the living environment

Since 2016, the Périgord-Limousin Regional Natural Park has been organizing "Off-Site" workshops with numerous universities across France. These workshops allow forto host teams of students in the area from different disciplines in order to develop, with the communities, projects related to the revitalization of rural communities. Municipalities thus benefit from a fresh perspective on their rehabilitation projects, while young people are trained through concrete projects, in welcoming experimental settings.

Launched in the fall of 2025, the "Hors les Murs" workshop in Jumilhac-le-Grand aims to support the town in its reflection on the living environment of its residents. Until the summer of 2026, it involves students from the University of Bordeaux Montaigne (Master's program in Cultural and Intercultural Project Engineering) and the National School of Architecture of Clermont-Ferrand.

The project invites us to look ahead to the next twenty years by integrating the challenges of ecological and societal transitionsThe commission focuses on the connections between the town centre, the extensions of La Perdicie and the gymnasium, the uses of the town centre, the links with the banks of the Isle, as well as the development of public spaces.

An initial visit at the end of 2025 allowed the students to conduct an assessment of the area and the needs of the residents. During this visit, they carried out street interviews to meet with them.

Investing in public space

At the end of January, the seven students from the National School of Architecture returned to Jumilhac for five days, with the mission of designing layouts in the public space, which illustrate their vision of the town. They were supervised for this by a teacher and a carpenter.

The constraints for implementation were as follows: use of locally sourced or recycled materials; integration of feedback from the diagnostic phase; buy-in from municipal staff; participation of middle school students from Châlus; and inauguration of the completed projects with the local community. "building together" formed the basis of the experience. Anchoring the project in the territory was the priority.

To design their street furniture, the students had access to stakes and chestnut wood chips from the Rilhac-Lastours Chestnut Grove; hazel and broom branches collected from local residents; and bamboo cut that very day. The village hall and rooms adjoining the town hall were also made available to them. Two sites were chosen: the grassy path leading down to the castle and a more secluded municipal plot of land used each year as a parking lot during the summer flea market.

On the walkwayThe students chose to change the viewpoints by slightly shifting his gazein order to diminish the symbolic and visual presence of the castle. To achieve this, installations playing with the slope were created using chestnut stakes, string, broom braids, and wood chips. These installations divert the gaze in two stages, with a bouncing effect on the remarkable trees. The visitor can thus, depending on the point of view, forget the castle for a moment or, on the contrary, rediscover it with a heightened awareness.

On the plotThe project involved building a bench integrated into a design that plays with the vanishing lines created by the rooftops of the houses and the focus on the castle. Constructed using a mortise and tenon system, it is demountable and reproducible. Its comfortable seat invites one to enjoy winter sunsets facing the castle.

Bringing together university and high school students

On Friday, January 30th, middle school students from the Graphic Arts program at Pierre Desproges Middle School in Châlus joined the university students to work on site. Some of them had already visited in November to explore the town, make sketches, and create pop-up models. The entire group had also designed posters in class, summarizing the work done with the students on surveying, collecting testimonies, and proposing development plans. These posters were displayed in the shared space.

Late in the morning, spread across the two sites, the middle school students, on the one hand, participated in the weaving of plants and wood chips, and on the other hand, created an installation using bamboo found on site. The students became tutors for the pupils; the day proved to be rich in exchanges and imbued with a strong human dimension.

The future of these facilities will depend on the maintenance provided by the municipality. Designed to be temporary and adaptable, they are intended to evolve over time, according to how the residents use them.