Lycée Francais de Singapour Extends With A Lush Open Space

The Lycée Francais de Singapour (LFS) is an educational institution catering to Singapore’s French community. This project is a new primary school extension to the existing secondary school on an adjacent site.

The landscape design re-interprets the rich depth of French culture to create an innovative learning environment in tropical Singapore with an Asian-French identity.

The overriding challenge in the project was the successful preservation and integration of four heritage-value mature rain trees on site, which are sandwiched between the reconstruction of the old canal and the new school buildings. The trees now form a key visual landmark that greets visitors upon entry. Nestled within their shade are poetic interpretations of place, leading from the Welcome Garden to the Woodland Garden.

The Welcome Garden, with its wooden deck and benches, serves as an outdoor living room, inviting a moment of repose. In the Woodland Garden, rainwater is collected, held and channelled into the re-built canal, with timber terraces suspended over rocks and boulders, mixed in with indigenous plants and broad-leaved lush planting. The canteen space opens out to the Woodland Garden, which transitions into a structured space called the Formal Garden—a series of rectangular lawns and linear hedges with punctuating columnar trees.

Along the classroom blocks is the Botanic Learning Walk, with a long timber-like terrace extension. A series of strongly patterned concrete planting beds—resembling French-styled parterres—form child-sized mazes to engage curiosity and instil appreciation for flora diversity. The edge of the botanic walk is defined by brightly coloured concrete benches that form a sinuous wave in the landscape, sliced following the parterre planters. This wave reflects and forms a counter-wave to the curve of the walkway above.

The learning section of the development features three open-air play courts in basic geometric forms—square, circle and triangle—with two- and three-dimension concrete and pebble wash motifs, such as raised artificial lawn planes, folded forms, mounds, and depressions for imaginative play.

This article was originally published on Construction+ Singapore online