Bringing Innovation to Boarding School Design

Taking inspiration from the first-class airline cabin, at Beau Soleil international boarding school our newly renovated boarding rooms bring airline innovation to enhance our students boarding experience.

At our boarding school, situated in Villars in the awe inspiring Swiss Alps, we have been working to make our students’ home space as beautiful and inviting as the world outside their door, because we know that a welcoming and peaceful home space leads to more successful learning and retention, as well as overall mental health. We want our boarding living spaces to be as special as the youth that inhabit them.

Two top architects were given the task of reimagining our Beau Soleil Boys dorm spaces through the inspirational lens of a first-class airline cabin. We then asked them to test their designs by overhauling four of our current student rooms. This meant creating warm and ergonomically friendly lodging that also had a creative use of space. We took our traditional rooms that were minimalistic with simple single beds and added an immense amount of innovative touches. Our gifted architects lofted our beds and tucked them into calming alcoves, complete with built in storage. The desk spaces for studying were enhanced with easily accessible outlets, storage drawers, and an abundance of shelving for keeping textbooks or displaying photos and mementos of home or school adventures.

The remodel has been a stunning transformation from functional living spaces, to student centered rooms, designed to motivate and rejuvenate. From the comfortable desk chairs to warm wood tones, no detail was left ignored. We have now moved several students into our remodeled rooms and are working with them as valued members of our team to have a dialogue regarding what elements they love and want to see implemented in our larger planned redesign as well as what areas should go back to the drawing board for further refining.

At Beau Soleil, we continually strive to be on the forefront of not just educational offerings, but of boarding school design. We pursue this goal daily because at Beau Soleil, we know this is our students’ second home, and our students aren’t just students. They are also family.