The Forge Domain

Built from 1778 on the site of a medieval mansion, the castle of Forges is commissioned by Baron André Charles Debonnaire to the famous Parisian architect Pierre Desmaisons. He also led the construction of Button Castle in Gif-sur-Yvette, which currently hosts a CNRS Campus. The building is in classic style; Its central body is equipped with two advances in return and high levels.

The owner of the Château from 1873, Jules Guichard (1827-1896), president of the Suez Canal Universal Company and senator of the Yonne, made him add two wings and leaves his initials on the triangular pediment of the central part.

In 1949, the Assumption Institute inherited the Castle on the condition that it served as a framework for an educational work. The building briefly welcomes the novitiate of the Institute, then an international postulate. A boarding school was opened in September 1950, followed by a nursery school, a college, a general high school, and then a vocational horticultural school, which will evolve towards a UFA around the horse trades, which remains in buildings adjacent to the Castle.

Created in 2018, the Transition Campus gives a new face to the educational tradition of the place.

Since 2018, a lot of work has been done to enable residents, residents and people in training to be accommodated in the best conditions. Especially in 2024:

• The kitchen has been completely renovated, from tiled to electricity and plumbing. The electrical panels and pipes have also been renovated. Much of the material has been renewed, and the spaces redesigned to create a "walk forward" of the products (avoid that the clean circuit crosses the dirty circuit).
• The electricity on the east wing of the castle on the ground floor has been redone, and the plumbing work has allowed the supply of drinking water again on the entire castle, i.e. about 80 meters of piping.
• The castle also benefited from insulation works, including the installation of double glazing windows on the ground floor and the first floor.

The castle consists of several offices, dozens of rooms, kitchens, large rooms, library and lounges are the main place of life for the inhabitants and visitors.

The Transition campus also has a former newly built college with its classrooms, as well as "commons", old buildings that served as stables and cremerie and turned into classrooms and dormitories.

Within a domain of 12 hectares, 8000m2 are cultivated according to the principles of permaculture and agroecology. Combating climate change, respecting shelter and equitably providing shelter for biodiversity and humans, inspired by nature, are ethical principles at the heart of gardeners' work. The park and its gardens meet three main objectives:

• Education be a learning medium to connect to the living, to the host groups and to the campus community.
• Feeder : produce organic fruits and vegetables, fresh and directly cooked on site in good vegetarian meals
• Landscape : be a source of aesthetic inspiration and breathing to rest there

Cultivated on 500m2, the English garden is both an ornamental garden where meals are shared and a place to produce small fruits (raspberries and blackcurrants).

Under the shade of a linden, mushrooms - pleurote and shiitake - are cultivated on logs of the forest. When the great heats come, the shadow of the great willow dome refreshes the outdoor lunches.

Released from land in 2022, the mandala vegetable garden is the first cultivated garden to have been created on an area of 1000m2. The mandala stands at the crossroads between a geometric symmetry inspired by the French gardens and the wild expression of a natural garden.

About 30 species of vegetables and edible flowers are cultivated there, for a total of three tonnes harvested in 2024, or 50% autonomy. Every year, goals and diversity increase.

Three orchards are cultivated within the estate:

• The North Orchard, the oldest, planted more than thirty years ago on 2000m2, at the time when the castle of Forges was a horticultural high school. The twenty large apple trees each year give more than one tonne of table apples and juice apples that we press with organic juice. The juice is sold on site.
• The South Orchard, planted in 2021 on 1500m2, of which 50 apple trees gave their first table apples in 2024. It is a multi-stage orchard with several layers of vegetation: fruit trees, small fruits, perennial mellifers and ornamentals, for the pleasure of pollinators and curious visitors.
• Mandala orchard, planted in 2023 on 900m2, is composed of a variety of fruit trees in young age: cherry trees, pear trees, peach trees, apricot trees, fig trees, grenadiers, plaqueminier, arbousier... It is a sort of replica of the fruity Mandala vegetable garden, where assemblies can be held in the open air. One day, a clown funambule played the clarinet, following a theatre cabaret of improvisation.

In an ecological sobriety approach and to get closer each year to vegetable autonomy, the Campus expands its vegetable plots. Today, squash fields, strawberries, potatoes and sweet potatoes coexist on 1000m2.

Two greenhouses of 125m2 each allow to extend the production season and to grow summer vegetables under shelter (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, etc.), even in the event of a disaster linked to climate change (diseases being a real scourge during rainy summer as in 2024).

Within the Forges domain, a true ecological living-lab, humans respect natural habitats and coexist with wild biodiversity (birds, reptiles, batracians, insects, soil microfauna, etc.).

We also take care of a few farm animals, among them our twelve hens (they will no doubt welcome you cheerfully upon your arrival) as well as our two rams of Ouessant, Cotton-Tige and Baboucka, faithful mowers on legs fed with bio-energy (herb, no more or less).

The ecological management of the three hectares of historic forest in Forges allows to respect the natural forest cycles. In order to reduce our ecological impact, 25% of the firewood consumed each winter for the castle comes from our forest, harvested in tillage under futai.

The forest is a preserved natural space where one can walk freely, except in a sanctuary area for biodiversity and promote natural cycles.

The estate's tree park extends over several hectares, it is a shared living space that benefits from ecological and integrated management. Green waste becomes a vegetable garden resource (wood broyate, mowings and dead leaves).

In order to reduce our ecological footprint, a differentiated mowing carefully values the paths while allowing a high prairie to develop, thus allowing the reproductive cycle of insects, which are combined with vegetable gardens and orchards. Once this cycle is completed, the prairie is mowed annually in the fall.