Thesis title:
INNOVATIVE CAMPUS: AN EXPERIMENT IN INTERSCALE CONNECTIVITY
Date of discussion:
06 October 2022
Students:
Federico Camillini, Imane El Bakkali
Supervisor
Francesca Battisti
Professors of the Studio
Francesca Battisti (Architectural Design)
Grigor Angjeliu (Structural and Seismic Design)
Massimiliano Nastri (Sustainable Technology)
Giovanni Dotelli (Sustainable Materials for Architecture)
Francesco Romano (Service Design for Sustainable Buildings)
Abstract:
Located in Paris Saclay, the proposed Centre for Research Excellence in Biomedical Engineering acts as an “urban device” with the aim of constructing a network linking the buildings and the landscape, along with a sequence of spaces blending gradually the two distinct characters into a coherent and unique spatial experience. Creating spaces where people with different profiles can interact with each other was one of our unchanging goals along with having a hierarchy between different units. The superimposition of the organic geometry and the Cartesian one is not only found on the urban scale, but also in the building design itself. The shell, going in and out the regular blocks, creates different physical and spatial outputs and encourages the interaction of the users with the built environment. To create a dichotomy with existing layout and to reinforce present system we have made an organic landscape decision. Although the shell is continuously blending with the blocks, each of them keeps its structural autonomy. The new architecture engraves the urban structure of the campus: materializing through these spaces one of the project’s basic concepts of inter-scale relationships. The intent is to integrate the campus’s “physiognomy” from north to south and from east to west, creating a new, innovative part, but well-blended with the texture of well-known plateau.