Photography by Maxime Brouillet

A Look Inside the School of the Future

École de l’Étincelle in Saguenay, Quebec takes architectural inspiration from innovative schools in Denmark, Japan and Finland

By Joëlle Arianna Staropoli

November 25, 2024

Most Canadian students spend their formative years in cookie-cutter classrooms with painted concrete walls. But in 2017, a group of Quebec-based education advocates—including celebrated architect Pierre Thibault—broke with tradition. They persuaded then education minister Sébastien Proulx to kick in $3 million to create Lab-École, a non-profit incubator aimed at developing learning environments that would make children excited to go to school. Lab-École’s model, inspired by primary schools in Denmark, Finland and Japan, included large windows, natural materials, and ample room for kitchens, common spaces and play.

MACLEANS_Building_Lab Ecole_Maxime Brouillet 480 — The light-filled community learning hub features massive, built-in wooden bleachers where students can read and socialize. After hours, the space opens to the public for events.

In 2019, six schools were chosen to receive Lab-École makeovers, one of which was Marguerite-d’Youville in Saguenay, a mid-sized city west of the St. Lawrence River. The combined team of Agence Spatiale, Appareil Architecture and BGLA Architecture drafted the proposal for what would become École de l’Étincelle (or “Spark School”). The $16.75-million design featured three interconnected, all-wood pavilions with sloping roofs reminiscent of Saguenay’s Little White House—one of the only structures that survived the summer floods that swept the region in 1996 (and now a museum).

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The school’s first wing houses offices and kindergarten classrooms, while the second, central wing has a culinary lab and multi-purpose creative lab, along with a community learning hub that doubles as a library and gathering space. In the third wing, the school’s 12 elementary classrooms are spread out between three homey cottage-like structures.

MACLEANS_Building_Lab Ecole_Maxime Brouillet 482 — The school recently applied to receive LEED v4 certification, a seal of approval for sustainable buildings. Wood-dominant designs (like the classroom above) tend to emit fewer greenhouse gases.

Outside, the yard is surrounded by the U-shaped main building, protecting the area from high winds and other wild weather. There’s an outdoor classroom, a sports circuit and lots of climbable play structures (made with repurposed wood from the now-demolished Marguerite-d’Youville). Bioretention basins are built into the garden to manage stormwater runoff. Here, kids can learn the ins and outs of urban agriculture.

MACLEANS_Building_Lab Ecole_Maxime Brouillet 481 — Once their garden-grown produce is ripe for the picking, École de l’Étincelle’s students can use it to prepare healthy recipes in the building’s designated culinary lab

After doors opened in August of 2023, the structure received glowing reviews from its 290 pupils (and the public, who make regular use of its park and kitchen). The province has no plans to extend Lab-École after all its schools are completed this year, but the program has already aced its assignment: to get Canadians thinking differently about what a school can be.