Paris-based studio Graal architecture has completed the extension to the town hall in Villiers-le-Bel, a French town and commune located about twenty kilometers north of Paris.

This project represents a challenge by providing a neutral, singular, and timeless image in this urban landscape characterized by a heterogeneous context that mixes different scales and architectural densities.

It is also a political, social, and cultural challenge by proposing a more open structure to the city and an improvement in the quality of social services for the inhabitants of the town. The town hall dialogues with the space that surrounds it and blends in with the urban fabric and social context.
Graal architecture designs a new extension that will improve the coherence of this rapidly evolving part of the city center. In the west, the volume is separated under two gabled roofs that are intended to remind the single-family houses of a town that has now become a meeting point for different cultures.

Inside, areas are projected where citizen businesses and administrative procedures are carried out.

The image of the project alternates beige tones through an interplay of solids and voids, and the new cladding provides a subtle vision of the architecture and creates a great harmony with the neighboring buildings.


Villiers-le-Bel Town Hall by Graal architecture. Photograph by Maxime Verret.


Villiers-le-Bel Town Hall by Graal architecture. Photograph by Maxime Verret.
 

Project description by Graal architecture

The extension of the town hall of Villiers-le-Bel reflects political, social, and cultural challenges and a commitment of the client to the enhancement of the quality of services available to the citizens of the town. It aims to provide a neutral, singular, and, intemporal image in this urban landscape characterized by a heterogeneous context blending varying architectural scales and densities. The project transforms the inward-looking institutional building into one that exists in a dialogue with the surrounding urban fabric and social context. The unifying architectural style of the new extension creates an arrangement that, rather than making an architectural statement, seeks to clarify what is already there, in order to improve the coherence of this part of the rapidly evolving town center.

The new volume avoids the role of architectural objects and instead serves as a backdrop framing the historic town hall. The treatment of the envelope with vertical ceramic baguettes unifies the extension by the materiality of a mineral skin. Thus, the project comes across as a mediating element organizing the different relations between the buildings that through a process of accumulation compose the current town hall. Alternating shades of beige through the interplay of solids and voids, the new mineral cladding endows this institutional facility with a new subtle and peaceful presence in harmony with the town’s older domestic terracotta-clad buildings.

Inserted between the two existing buildings, the new extension is embedded in a very cramped footprint.  This residual space has been turned into a lobby where the transparency of the façade extends the forecourt directly into the building’s interior whilst also enabling citizens to calmly carry out their business unimpeded. From the west side, the volume separates under two roofs with two slopes designed to recall the original single-family homes of a small town that has since become in just a few years an amazing multicultural crossroad.

More information

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Architects
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Client
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Ville de Villiers-le-Bel.
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Area
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4,476 m².
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Location
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32 rue de la République, Villiers-le-Bel, France.
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Graal, founded by Carlo Grispello and Nadine Lebeau, is dedicated to architecture and urban strategies. The firm strives to enhance the qualities of uses, ways of dwelling and project materiality.

The firm’s projects are developed through an analytical and sensitive approach to give a real place to the role of territorial investigation, the public dimension and the economics of project throughout the design phases. Graal aspires to render the specific features of a site and a project commission through a sober, independent and contemporary language. Through an attitude coherent with the context and an investigation on the relational space, the projects carry a positive social and environmental impact.

Graal is committed to dealing with every scale, from interior design to the urban scale project. The office’s practice encompasses France and abroad in close collaboration with multidisciplinary consultants in order to guarantee intelligent and feasible projects. graal has been distinguished on several occasions. In 2016, the office was prizewinner of the ADC Awards and received the Europe 40 under 40 award attributed by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Urban Centre for Architecture, Art Design and Urban Studies.

Nadine Lebeau. Architect DPLG, graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris la Villette. She joined Atelier Seraji as architect before created graal architecture with Carlo Grispello in 2011. Prizewinner of 40 under 40 in 2016 by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Urban Centre for Architecture, Art Design and Urban Studies. Named among the 100 young leaders who invent the city of tomorrow by the Choiseul Institute in September 2018.

Carlo Grispello. Architect DPLG, graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris la Villette. He worked as lead architect for Bruno Mader and as architect for Renzo Piano Building Workshop. Created graal architecture with Nadine Lebeau in 2011.  Associate professor of theories and practices of architectural and urban design at the École Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes since 2016. Prizewinner of 40 under 40 in 2016 by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Urban Centre for Architecture, Art Design and Urban Studies.
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Published on: June 1, 2023
Cite: "Dialogue in a new social context. Villiers-le-Bel Town Hall by Graal architecture" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/dialogue-a-new-social-context-villiers-le-bel-town-hall-graal-architecture> ISSN 1139-6415
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