“The project supports modernity and heritage by implementing a clear and radical loop figure as a way to imbricate both in the most fluid way ever. ESPCI becomes finally a functional unit as well as one cohesive architectural body.”
ESPCI School
A clear, functional architectural figure : the loop. Our point of departure : to build the new entity by integrating the history of the school, treating the existing and the new. Instead of separating the new from the old, merge them to create a new figure : the loop. The requirement of natural light prohibiting a thick building, the solution was to lengthen the sequence of the surfaces as much as possible. The long buildings on Rataud and Brossolette streets have been thickened and connected to the new corner trays installed in the heart of the island. Result : at each level, new spaces and old spaces develop in continuity around a courtyard. They form a loop.
The loop, a figure that offers decisive advantages :
- Fluidity : a wide circulation ensures a continuous distribution of spaces at each level. There is no “cul de sac”, The fluidity of the system is completed by a multitude of vertical connections. And a large transverse link, starting from the courtyard, connects the auditoriums, the rooms of TP and extends to the terrace-garden of the last level.
- Equality : there is no difference between old and new. Buildings on streets having been thickened, all spaces have the same spatial qualities. The loop makes the ESPCI a functional unit combining teaching and research. A clear, functional architectural figure : the loop. Our point of departure : to build the new entity by integrating the history of the school, treating the existing and the new. Instead of separating the new from the old, merge them to create a new figure : the loop.
- Mixed : laboratories, researchers’ offices, classrooms are developing continuously. Students and researchers are in permanent proximity. With the loop the school becomes the common place, the common house of the researchers and the pupils.
- Scalability : the spaces being identical, it is enough to move a partition to extend a laboratory.
credits
Architects : OMA France (Clément Blanchet)
Clients : Superior School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry
Nature of the operation : Competition MOP law
Realised in : 2014
Status : competition
Site : Paris 5eme arrondissement
Program : 26,000 m2 (laboratories, workshops, auditoriums, restaurants)
Budget : 60 Millions Euros
Exact mission : Director and associate in charge of the OMA competition
team composition
Engineering : ARTELIA
Acoustic : DHV
Landscape : Michel Devignes
Economist : Cabinet Collin