S-Tiles - École 2ème Chance, Marseille

	[ÉCOLE DE LA DEUXIÈME CHANCE ]
	Name: École de la Deuxième Chance		Design: Ville de Marseille
	Destination of use: school building		Manufacturer: Marazzi Gruppo Ceramiche
	City: Marsiglia		Ceramic Materials: vitrified stoneware. Line: Marlit; Series: Opus
	Country: Francia
	Type of intervention: flooring
	Costumers: Ville de Marseille
	Year of completion: 2001
	The Project
	The Écoles de la Deuxième Chance (E2C) are for youths between the ages of 18 and 25 with no qualifications and encountering difficulties in integrating themselves in the working world. The establishment of a network of institutions such as this one is due to the European Commission that already in the mid nineties had realised how European youths with difficulties on the work front constituted a big problem. Marseille was the first city to respond to the appeal of the then-education commissioner Edith Cresson, and thus E2C was created in 1998. But it was only in 2001, however, that the institution came into possession of its permanent building, created from the re-structuring of the ex communal abattoir, a site of industrial archaeology deemed to have great architectonic interest. The project of restructuring, created by the municipal technical office, constitutes an emblematic case of participative architecture. Various players collaborated to finish the plans of intervention, discussing in detail the particulars and the objectives. We do not know to what extent this influenced, for example, the choice of materials, but the end result (although not comparable to prestigious architectonic works) gave the building a sense of freshness, and a certain naiveté that goes well with the construction itself.