The prefabricated one. In recent years, it has established itself as a solution to the housing crisis and the explosion of the number of students in schools. Without throwing the stone to the decision -makers who opt for ephemeral remedies, a specialist in built heritage warns against the temptation to make it a long -term solution.
On avenue Christophe-Colomb, in the Villeray district, the prefabricated blue, yellow and gray building which has been attached to the Marie-Favery school has been part of the landscape since 2018. The Montreal School Service Center (CSSDM) thought of removing it after the pandemic, but was changed due to “the massive arrival of students in reception since 2022”.
Since then, the file has been “in analysis”, we read in the three-year distribution and destination plan for buildings 2024-2027 of the service center. “It is difficult to predict a date of withdrawal since the situation is linked to immigration,” said the CSSDM.
This is the case of this Montreal school which came to the mind of Claudine Déom, a teacher associated with the architecture school of the University of Montreal, when we asked for his opinion on the possible sustainability of installations which were to be at the start.
“I would not wish to, because in visual terms, in terms of cohabitation in the neighborhood …”, says without completely completing his thought that which carried out research on the conservation of the architecture of the schools of the CSSDM (the Montreal School Board, at the time).
Photo Marco Campanozzi, the presses
Claudine Déom, associate professor at the University of Montreal Architecture School
We cannot be completely against it, because it allows school to ensure its primary mission, but if we are satisfied with the temporary classes that become permanent, I think it says a lot about the appreciation that we collectively have the quality of our built environment.
Claudine Déom, associate professor at the University of Montreal Architecture School
“Because on the visual level, it is rather ordinary. It’s pretty ugly, ”she lets down.
“If we only stick to the primary mission of the school and we do not take these aspects into account, it seems to me that we miss several opportunities to contribute to the quality of the built environment,” adds the professor.
Do new with old
The Ministry of Education did not want to advance on the possibility that certain modular installations, with a temporary vocation, be perpetuated. At the CSSDM, “what we promote is to be able to rehabilitate them,” argued Stéphane Chaput, the deputy director general responsible for material resources.
It is also the approach that has the preference of Claudine Déom. She cites as an example the repair and enlargement of the primary school La Visitation, in the district of Ahuntsic-Cartierville, where the new has been added to the old man.
Thus she suggests “rethinking to all these precepts that the Lab-Schools have made it possible to identify” and apply them to existing buildings. “Old schools, there are everywhere in Quebec. And we will not start to demolish everything. We will have to work with what we have, ”says the professor.
There are on the territory of the CSSDM 102 buildings which have a heritage value, and which appear in the repertoire of cultural heritage of Quebec. Dated October 25, 2024, the real estate asset maintenance deficit was 1.8 billion there, and the replacement value was estimated at 11.3 billion.