Image courtesy of BAST

The jury of the Mies van der Rohe Award decided to give the ‘Emerging Architecture’ prize to the Toulouse-based firm BAST for the school cafeteria that it built in Montbrun-Bocage, a commune in France’s Haute-Garonne department, near the Pyrenees. The extension of a small village school, it closes the playground physically but not visually, modest as it is in size and discreet in how it inserts itself into the rural environment. A simple shed accommodating a minimal program, covered with a pitched roof of sheet metal, opening out to the surrounding landscape through large glass panes: in this manner, modesty and discretion are the project’s two fundamental points.