Structure agency Studio Gang has sought to “amplify social connections” at its first French venture, the John W Boyer Middle in Paris, a “vertical campus” created utilizing mass timber for the College of Chicago.
The educational construction in Paris’s thirteenth arrondissement was designed by Studio Gang with a hybrid-timber-and-steel construction and a facade coated with over 900 cylindrical limestone-covered fibreglass “batons” that perform as brise soleil.
Sited on an ongoing growth adjoining to a housing block by Parc Architectes, the John W Boyer Middle was designed as a “vertical campus” to broaden the College of Chicago’s analysis capabilities into Europe.
“The Middle in Paris is designed as a vertical campus,” stated Studio Gang founding associate Jeanne Gang.
“Its multilevel atrium gives all of the areas with gentle and gives visible connections throughout packages,” she continued.
“We needed the constructing to amplify social interactions, scholarly collaborations, and cultural trade between the College and town of Paris.”
In an effort to meet laws put in place by Paris that require public buildings to utilise no less than 50 per cent wooden or different pure supplies in development, Studio Gang opted for a hybrid timber-and-steel construction.
A concrete basis and metal base helps a mass-timber grid. Cross-laminated timber decks are unfold throughout metal trusses to create a structurally sound constructing that conforms to authorities necessities.
The limestone of the facade was built-in to be able to fulfil the pure materials wants and visually hyperlink the constructing to the limestone facades of different Parisian buildings.
All the stone was sourced from quarries inside 40 kilometres of town, in line with Studio Gang.
“Every baton is enrobed in Lutetian limestone, a stone that underlies a lot of the Paris area and has been a standard native constructing materials since antiquity,” stated Studio Gang.
“Limestone hyperlinks the constructing to the college’s most important campus in Chicago, the place it is usually a distinguished constructing materials, whereas concurrently rooting it to the historical past of Paris.”
The constructing consists of two blocks, with the nook block rising greater and an atrium between the shorter and taller blocks.
The constructing’s entrance leads right into a double-height foyer that connects to a shared courtyard backyard on the centre of the block and to a five-storey atrium. This atrium serves as a stairwell to the entire construction and is topped by skylights angled to finest make the most of pure gentle.
A sculptural staircase zigzags up via the atrium and school rooms and analysis areas had been opened as much as this circulation area via home windows to make the most of the sunshine from the skylights.
Libraries, school rooms, and analysis labs had been positioned all through this system, which has flooring of assorted heights on both facet of the atrium, in line with use.
The rooftop holds a double-height occasions area that leads out right into a “biodiverse” rooftop backyard.
Along with the visible connection to Parisian infrastructure achieved via the limestone, the construction additionally connects structurally with town as an entire, because it homes an underground connection to the Paris subway system.
The studio additionally applied photovoltaic panels on the rooftop to offset the constructing’s vitality utilization.
“In alignment with the environmental requirements of the Metropolis of Paris, the design minimizes the constructing’s carbon footprint whereas optimizing its vitality efficiency,” stated the studio.
The John W Boyer Middle is the primary French venture for the studio after it opened its Paris workplaces in 2017. Its first European venture was a pair of residential buildings accomplished in Amsterdam in 2022.
Just lately, Studio Gang accomplished one other mass-timber construction embedded in a concrete podium for a college campus in California.
The images is by Fabrice Fouillet until in any other case acknowledged.
Challenge credit:
Design architects: Studio Gang
Mass timber columns and beams: KLH
Cross-laminated timber panels: Weisrock Vosges SAS
Metallic/glass curtain wall: Horizons
Wooden cladding: Lignalpes
Stone display facade: Polycor France
Home windows: Wicona
Glazing: RIOU Glass
Photovoltaic system: Sunpower Maxeon
Conveyance: Otis
