Narbo Via – a new museum of Roman antiquities in Narbonne – has officially opened following an inauguration ceremony attended by the conseil de la Region Carole Delga. The building, designed and engineered by Foster + Partners is set to become a new landmark at the entrance to the city, on a site adjacent to the Canal de la Robine.
Raised on top of a podium, the museum provides a sense of restrained civic and architectural monumentality at the entrance to the city. The building incorporates galleries for permanent and temporary exhibitions, a multimedia education centre, auditorium, restaurant and bookshop, as well as research, restoration and storage facilities. Externally there are formal gardens and an amphitheatre for outdoor performances.
Foster + Partners Design Team: Norman Foster, Spencer de Grey,David Nelson, Grant Brooker, Andy Bow, Hugh Stewart, Francois Curato, Angelika Kovacic, Piers Heath, Roger Ridsdill-Smith, Fillipo Bari, Trevor Barrett, Ariadna Barthe Cuatrecasas, Peter Donegan, Carole Frising, Ed Garrod, Vagelis Giouvanos, Ricardo Candel Gurrea, Andres Harris, Helene Huang, Raphael Keane, Amanda Lyon, Berenice del Valle Moran, Adeline Morin, Raffaella Panella, Raj Patel, Alex (Zhen) Qian, Camilla Sand, Daniel Skidmore, Thang Vu
The city of Garges-lès-Gonesse had the ambition to enrich its public facilities with a new cultural centre that would reflect the image of a young and artistically creative city. The work brings together the various disciplines that make up the city’s cultural landscape. The aim was to stimulate cross-cutting activities between the arts and to encourage the opening up of culture from this new cultural centre. The project unfolds around the existing Lino Ventura space with a 250-seat auditorium, a 200-seat cinema, a conservatory and a media library, organised around a generous, bright and crossing reception area. The Lino Ventura space benefits from a central urban location, at the heart of the town’s road network and public transport system. The project is located at the crossroads of the two main roads running through the town, Avenue du Général Leclerc and Avenue du Général de Gaulle.
A new Sport Equipment arranged in an L-shape at the south-eastern corner of the stadium. It opens towards the entrance to the site and the football field and contains the forecourt and landscaped areas.
The building consists of two registers, two elements that attract and meet without touching. A first element, anchored to the ground, constitutes the base of the building and integrates the entire program. The second element, suspended, makes up the roof and canopy of the equipment.
Project Beaumarchais takes place in a little alley, calm and vegetal, sheltered from the noisy neighborhood.
The former commercial unit has to be transformed into a loft. The existing space is defined by its structure, metallic ceiling and beams, cinder blocks on the walls, by its 3.85m under the ceiling and by its depth, with only one facade towards the exterior to bring light in.
Michelin’s Canopy was implanted in the Carmes site of Clermont-Ferrand since the company’s inception in the late 19th century, and instituted as its headquarters in the 2000s. The project, delivered in 2021 and carried by the partnership between Encore Heureux Architectes, Construire and Base, aims to embody the image of the group in a welcoming, unique and cohesive space, all while inserting itself in an emblematic public square. The headquarters’ innovative new reception area symbolizes Michelin’s reinvention, conceived to face 21st century challenges head-on; a design and operation that were conceptualized in a circular economy perspective, mindful of environmental impact.
Article source: Levitt Bernstein and TKMT architectes
Levitt Bernstein and TKMT architectes designed a new visitor centre as part of the Institut Laue-Langevin campus in Grenoble, a pan-European initiative providing neutrons to visiting researchers for experiments and analysis at the molecular level. The new building will give access to the institute’s array of state-of-the-art equipment and provide scientists with a base for their work. Also included are new conference facilities, bookable lab space and healthcare support. Inspired by the nearby neutron accelerator, the design of the building takes its cues from specific scientific methods, while also creating highly functional, multipurpose spaces.
Gaîté Montparnasse, the MVRDV-designed transformation of a city block just a short walk from Paris’ Tour Montparnasse, is now open. The project has rationalised the existing uses of the mixed-use block – which included a hotel, shopping centre, office space and a library – and densified the area by adding social housing and a kindergarten. In doing so, the building has become more welcoming and accessible to pedestrians, while reusing significant parts of the previous structure from the 1970s following circular economy principles.
Completed in 1974, the original design of the “Îlot Vandamme” by Pierre Dufau was a landmark in its time, with the strong vertical lines of what is now the Pullman Hotel tower creating an unmissable presence in Montparnasse. At the same time, the plinth of rough textured concrete, boxy reflective glass, and red steel lattices epitomised the foibles of its era: surrounded by wide boulevards, the block was dominated by cars, and when viewed from the street looked introverted and unwelcoming.
MVRDV, along with co-architects ALL for real estate developer Groupe Giboire, has completed Ascension Paysagère, a residential complex at the confluence of two rivers in the west of Rennes, France. Occupying a crucial transitional space between the Rennes’ centre and its outer reaches, the 12-storey, 10,550-square-metre complex brings much-needed density in the context of the city’s outward growth, providing 138 homes in a variety of sizes and price ranges – including 37 units of social housing as well as commercial spaces and pleasant new public spaces in a green waterside environment.
The posed effect is a recurrent feature of the agency. It affirms the reading of well-defined volumes. The project is the superimposition of a relatively opaque volume placed on a wall. The living space located on the ground floor is completely hollowed out, thus offering itself generously to the garden. The long stone wall structures the entire house, becoming the common denominator between interior and exterior. This wall, located to the north, provides protection against prevailing winds and provides the necessary privacy from the street. It is animated outside by the swimming pool, inside by the stove and the metal staircase.
Inside, the floor is pierced with skylights, offering height and natural light to the living room. The rooms have terraces, filtered by a succession of sliding aluminum panels on the front. The choice of raw materials such as stone and wood creates a warm and soothing.
The compact and opaque typology of the buildings of the original house did not take advantage of the landscaping quality offered by the immediate proximity of a public park. To meet the need for expansion, the agency recommended that the house be renovated by occupying the night area, giving it more intimate spaces, and designing a contrasting extension, by means of a very open volume for the day spaces.
The installation of a narrow extension has been designed to occupy all the exterior. This layout generates a clearer reading and identifies spaces, such as the new entrance to the north, or the pool to the south.
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