Description

The campus of the Plateau de Saclay is 30 kilometres southwest of Paris and is set to become one of the most important research clusters in France with numerous state and private laboratories as well as residential quarters. Central to the project are the two leading engineering schools École Centrale Paris and Supélec, which have joined forces to form “CentraleSupélec”. In addition to planning the Lab City laboratory building, OMA also developed the master plan for the 33-hectare site. At the heart of the 250,000 m² programme of spaces is a diagonal axis linking student apartments, laboratory buildings and public functions to a future regional railway station. The system of access routes is inspired by trodden pathways through the grass resulting in sloping, crossing paths that break up the orthogonal order of the modernist campus. The strong urban gesture of the diagonal path leads across the central open space of the “Carré des Sciences” and continues into the Lab City building.

The Lab City building for “CentraleSupélec” is therefore part of a large research campus. Under a translucent roof, it brings together laboratories and seminar rooms in a connected interior landscape suffused with light, air and an extensive network of communicative circulation spaces. Spanning the entire structure is a lightweight roof structure of translucent ETFE cushions. The rooms are arranged on an open grid plan, stacked on top of each other to form an interior cityscape. Running between the individual blocks for research and teaching are small alleyways as well as a broad diagonal access boulevard, and in the centre is a cafeteria with internal terraces that serves as a central forum. This space can also be used for events and can be reconfigured using the flexible furniture, which was also partly designed by OMA. The complex unites previously separate functions such as laboratories for public and private research projects, teaching labs, public community facilities and rooms for seminars and scientific exchange.

A black façade of prefabricated concrete elements frames the 48,700 m² of varied space programme. Over the western foyer, an elevated rectangular volume clad in a reflective aluminium façade signals the point of entry into the campus, highlighting the moment of connection between the extensive campus and the interior landscape. The contrast between the lightness of the mirror image and the block-like black concrete façade of the laboratories exaggerates the alien character of the corner volume, drawing visitors into the funnel-shaped foyer. The first major facility after entering is the semi-circular amphitheatre with 970 seats, which can be used for lectures as well as for public evening events and can be divided into three sections. On the same side is the 1500 m² library. The cube on the upper floors houses the “Centre Langues”. The 70 teaching rooms of the language centre are separated from the rest of the building complex by a raised, introverted atrium with a perforated sheet aluminium façade.

In the entrance foyer opposite the amphitheatre is a staircase leading up to a reception area on the floor above with a round media room. From this plateau, one has a broad view over the forum and cafeteria where the diagonal and various other internal passages all come together. The laboratories and seminar rooms around this forum are staggered at different heights, creating numerous terraces with seating areas that for the most part can be used by the students. The partitioning walls within the workspaces can be used as blackboards.

The entire research complex with its four main themes “matter”, “energy”, “life” and “simulation” is criss-crossed by open streets, which aim to give the complex a semblance of the urban. This results in structures on either side of the diagonal that in the “matter zone” take the form of separate blocks with internal staircases, and in the “energy zone” on the other side are manifested as long boulevards crossed by walkways. The diagonal leads from the central forum into an atrium that marks the opposite end of the diagonal to the “Centre Langues” and the transition out of the building and on into the southern part of the campus. Seminar and lecture rooms for the natural sciences are arranged around this atrium on the ground floor with the dean’s office on the floor above. The basement houses special laboratories that require a separate structure decoupled from the rest of the building.

The diverse programme of spaces – subdivided into the dark research blocks and the raised section with the amphitheatre and language school – has been housed within a terraced formation of different-sized blocks with exposed concrete or white-painted drywall surfaces. This open, flexible constellation can accommodate both changes and conversions to individual sections as well as additions and extensions to gain more space as required in future.

Originally published in Bauwelt 24.2017, pp. 36-43, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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