Rosalind Franklin residence designed by the architecture studios Bruther and Baukunst is the winning result of an international competition organized by the EPA Paris-Saclay, 1001 Vies Habitat, with the association of ALJT.

The residence with a capacity to accommodate 282 students has a "U" shape. It has a program developed on 6 floors (the top four floors are dedicated to student accommodation) with 2 basements.
The residence designed by the Bruther and Baukunst studios combines 192 student accommodation and a commercial area of 245 m². The ground floor, treated in double height, integrates most of the collective activities of the student residence and access to the public car park with 491 spaces (which extends through the two basements and the 1st and 2nd floors) and a meeting room. mobility dedicated to the repair of two-wheeled vehicles.

The structure of the entire building, made of exposed concrete, recalls an intelligent stylistic language with references to Modernity.

The wide living spaces, approximately 16 meters deep, offer multiple and versatile possibilities of use, enhanced by the natural lighting present throughout the project. The flexibility of uses will even offer the possibility of transforming the 1st and 2nd floors, that is, 50% of the car park, into tertiary premises or housing.
 


 

Project description by BRUTHER and BAUKUNST

185 social student housing units associated with a reversible car park (housing/offices) with a superstructure of 500 spaces, sports hall, multi-purpose hall and shops.

The volume of the building is based on the rectangular shape of the land and assumes its U-shape which encloses the interior of the block. This interior, treated as an open-air garden, is the real lung of the project. Rather than a building, the project should even be presented as an economical and equipped structure. The programme brings together several disparate elements (student accommodation, communal facilities, shops, public and private car parks). The distribution of the different programmes follows a logic of superposition: a double-height ground floor hosting the shops and collective spaces of the student residence; two levels R+1 and R+2 in a large open plateau for public parking spaces; at levels R+3, R+4 and R+5, three levels of housing; and finally an attic level hosting the upper levels of some duplex housing.

As well thought out on the scale of the car as on that of the individual, the building seeks a way between a strictly functionalist approach and that constrained by domestic standards. The clarity of these structural responses allows the building to offer great flexibility and reversibility of use.

Winner of the Equerre d'Argent 2020

A Housing program in the heart of the Plateau de Saclay raises some questions: It means to imagine how to live together in an urban environment, founded on its well thought landscape qualities and its situation in a large scale territory.

This future hub of activities is located in the centre strip of the Quartier de l’école Polytechnique. The way it has been drawn looks like an American campus inspiration, mostly because of its continuous organisation, which forms a series of compact and opened blocks. The project is part of this strong urban system. Beyond the regularity of this drawing, the question of reversibility has already been well thought, especially regarding mobility.

Our project is founded on these future possible mutations, of uses and space. In its main lines, the project adopts the same morphology of its neighbours. It enhances the existing strong urban lines, but adds a large central space. This large shared garden is the main link between all the different activities of the project. The project distinguishes itself thanks to the presence of this garden. It brings views and breathing, at every floor.

The structure and the program take part in a unique logic. The project is ruled by a sense of economy, in space and in function. It stands as its identity. Following this idea, the building is as compact as it can be. The logic of implantation develops 16m large floors, allowing light to enter, following the whole circumference of the building. The inside spaces are also quite generous, with a 2m50 high for housing and 2m75 for the car park. The ground floor is even higher, 5m25 high, in order to give the possibility to add mezzanines. The strong structure is not only rigorous but also generous.

In the end, the structural grid is more generous than the one usually used in housing programs. The efficient structure is a real choice, using concrete slabs and columns, and allows to get rid of the usual transversal concrete walls. It reinforces the possibilities of variations in the organization: For example, the conversion between a T4 in T1 is very simple.

More information

Label
Architects
Text
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Design team
Text
Stephanie Bru, Alexandre Theriot, Quentin Madiot, Adrien Verschuere, Benoît Delpierre, Justine Devergnies.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Collaborators
Text
Building physics.- Inex. Structural engineering.- Batiserf. Design.- Chevalier-Masson. Landscape architect.- Franck Neau.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Client
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Area
Text
Total area.- 4,700 m². Usable floor area.- 15,000 m².
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Dates
Text
2020 (Year began 2018).
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Cost
Text
1,340 €/ m².
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Location
Text
LatLng.- (48.714782, 2.198741). Saclay, France.
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Photography
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Founded in 2007 by Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot, BRUTHER works in the fields of architecture, research, education, urbanism and landscape.

It is all about relentlessly switching from a “performance” to another. To understand and to accept conceptual and constructive needs but also to be able to back down and unexpectedly encounter new experimentation and research areas. Their projects suggest a delicate balance between strategy and form, rigor and freedom, specific and generic, immediacy and evolutivity. Considering the program in its future, their projects stand for open infrastructures that fit an abundance of context possibilities and a wide malleability of uses.

Award Winner, Prix de l’Équerre d’argent, New Generation Research Center, Caen (Fr), 2016. Gold Award, Best Architects Awards, Cultural and Sport Center Saint-Blaise, Paris (Fr), 2016. Nominated, Prix Mies van der Rohe, Cultural and Sport Center Saint-Blaise, Paris (Fr), 2015.

The studio is the winner of the awards: Prix de l’Équerre d’argent for the New Generation Research Center in Caen (Fr), 2016. Gold Award, Best Architects Awards for the Saint-Blaise Cultural and Sports Center in Paris (Fr), 2016. In addition, the studio has been nominated for the Prix Mies van der Rohe for its Saint-Blaise Cultural and Sports Center in Paris (Fr), 2015.
Read more
BAUKUNST. Combining art and technology, dialoguing and interplaying various forms of knowledge, BAUKUNST is committed to explore architecture as a medium with which both to think about building (BAU) and build ways of thinking (KUNST).

Adrien Verschuere. Studies in Architecture at ISA St-Luc Tournai, Belgium and at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (diploma with Prof. E. Zenghelis in 1999). He was a design architect at Herzog & de Meuron, Basel between 2000 and 2003 and at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture - Rem Koolhaas, Rotterdam until 2001. Adrien Verschuere is the co-founder of the architecture firm Made in, Geneva, Switzerland.

In 2010, he established BAUKUNST in Brussels and from 2017 in Lausanne. In 2019, BAUKUNST presented its first solo show at Bozar (Brussels), accompanied by a monograph publication (Ed. by Koenig Books) and at the Solo Galerie (Paris) in 2020.

Adrien Verschuere is regularly invited as guest critic or lecturer in various institutions, among others : the FAUP Porto, IRGE Universität Stuttgart, Berlage Institute Rotterdam, USI Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, Kyoto Design Lab, and ETH Zürich.

From 2019, Adrien Verschuere is Visiting Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Read more
Published on: January 24, 2022
Cite: "A nod to Modernity. Student Residence and Reversible Car Park by BAUKUNST and BRUTHER " METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/a-nod-modernity-student-residence-and-reversible-car-park-baukunst-and-bruther> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...