Public sector
School playgrounds, squares, parks: places where people want to stay.
LIBER.ARCHI designs public spaces for the municipalities of Savoie, from the first sketch through to handover. Shade at break time, coolness in August, shelter when it rains: that comfort is drawn with the soil, the water and the trees, from the very first line.
Watercolour by LIBER.ARCHI. This hide is drawn, not yet built.
What we design
Four everyday places
A school playground in June, at two in the afternoon: the asphalt gives the heat back and the children crowd under the shelter. A square nobody sits in any more, for want of shade. That is where we start.
01
School playgrounds
Lifting the asphalt where it only stores heat, planting trees that will shade children we have not met yet, letting the rain soak in where it falls. The sports pitch and the accessible routes stay hard-surfaced.
Read our article on unsealing a school playground→02
Village squares
Saturday market, the car pulling in, the bench where people sit in the evening: a square has to hold all of it at once. We design it from those uses, with the tree and the water as the first pieces of equipment, before the street furniture.
03
Parks and public spaces
Opening a park, renaturing a leftover plot, linking two neighbourhoods with a planted path. Places that ask little upkeep because they are designed with what already grows, not against it.
04
Viewpoints and small structures
A belvedere, a discovery trail, a shelter, a wildlife hide: timber, local stone, a structure that steps back before the landscape it opens up.
Our method
Soil first, figures early, works followed through.
01
Soil first
Before drawing, we read the ground: where the water comes from and where it pools, which trees deserve to stay, where shade is missing at break time. Drone survey and tree assessment included.
Drone survey→02
A costed sketch, early
A sketch and a cost estimate within the first weeks: that is what lets the council decide, and lets the municipality file a grant application in time. An early figure is worth more than a handsome rendering that comes late.
03
Works followed by someone who has planted
Guillaume Ciletti has been making and tending gardens since 2008; he qualified as an architect afterwards. On site, he knows what an undersized planting pit costs ten years on, and what asphalt laid up against a trunk does to the tree.
Design and site supervision are practised within LIBER.ARCHI, an architecture company registered with the French Ordre des architectes; POESAGES, Guillaume Ciletti’s landscape contracting company, never carries out the works on a project that LIBER.ARCHI designs and supervises.
Grants
We help you apply for grant funding
A playground or a village square is rarely paid for out of the municipal budget alone. We know the schemes, their conditions and their dates, and we produce the documents they call for.
01
Finding what will fund your project
Three schemes currently support this kind of work in Savoie. The FDEC, the département’s equipment fund for municipalities, backs school playgrounds and public space improvements. The water agency funds the disconnection of rainwater from the sewer network, school playgrounds included. The French State’s Fonds vert, its green fund, finances the renaturing of towns and villages. Which one applies to your project depends on three things: the sewer the site drains into, the area that can be disconnected, and the date you file.
02
Meeting the dates
The département’s application is filed before 31 October for funding the following year. The water agency has no closing date, but the application must reach it before any commitment to the works: filed after the first purchase order, it is refused. Those two calendars set ours.
03
Producing the documents
An application rests on a written brief, a funding plan and a detailed cost estimate, item by item. A contractor’s quotation is not enough to describe a playground. We carry out the survey, the sketch and the estimate, and we write the brief with you. The council resolution and the filing remain with the municipality; the grant remains the funder’s decision.
We promise no grant. We commit to the documents, the conditions and the deadlines. Conditions as published in September 2026; check them again with the Département, the water agency and the State services.
Arrange a visit→References
Four projects, four public clients
Led by Guillaume Ciletti, through POESAGES or with an architecture practice.
Chignin (Savoie)
Municipality · School playground
Unsealing the school playground: less asphalt, shade trees, rain soaking in on site.
Courchevel Le Praz (Savoie)
Municipality · School playground shelter
A covered shelter built in the school playground, with the yard’s two old apple trees kept in place: siting, foundations and drainage were worked out around them. Shade at break time, cover when it rains. With Inex-A Architectes.
Les Allues (Savoie)
Municipality · Village centre
Redesign of a mountain village centre: square, circulation, play area. Design and site supervision of the outdoor spaces, with Inex-A Architectes.
Bassens (Savoie)
Public hospital · CHS de la Savoie
Forecourt, courtyards and park of a hospital, on an occupied site: tree assessment, drone surveys, design of the outdoor spaces.
Frequently asked questions
How long between a first conversation and a costed sketch?
Usually a few weeks: a visit, a survey, a sketch, an estimate. Enough to meet a filing deadline, provided we do not start the week before.
Is there a minimum project size?
No. A playground of a few hundred square metres is drawn with the same care as a village square. We work mostly with municipalities of a few hundred to a few thousand inhabitants.
How can a municipality appoint us?
Depending on the amount, by direct award or through a tender: either way, your own public procurement rules apply. We also answer published tenders, alone or in partnership with an architecture practice.
First conversation
Where to start? With an hour on site.
The playground at break time, the square on market day: that is where we want to meet you. You leave with a reading of the place and a sense of what is possible, with no commitment.