Structure and architecture are one confusing in the book

Develop a school of architecture is a challenge between demonstration and introspection for the architect. Two schools on the twenty in the France will have received new premises in 2006. From Lille (850 students), located in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, has since May of an extension built to the extent of its educational project. That of Paris Val-de-Seine (1.900 students) left the Ecole des beaux-arts and the rue Jacques Callot in the 6th arrondissement workshops for re-entry into the sector Masséna in the 13th arrondissement. By Frédéric Borel, a disciple of Christian de Portzamparc, the Refoundation retrieves the walls of the Sudac, former plant of compressed air, and the dual construction, teaching expressive silo within the historic chimney. This work on the docks after the great mills that are home to the University of Paris VII Denis-Diderot takes on a symbolic dimension across the city.

Nothing of the sort with the Ecole d'Architecture de Lille, inward-looking Villeneuve d'Ascq since thirty years. The visibility of the institution is almost zero in the neighbourhood of new urbanization. The school does no worthy of the name facade, and the new extension turned its back on the street to watch the adjacent public park, provision imposed by available land.

In this eccentric context, fortunately served by the Metro, school of architecture has no alternative but to live on itself. This principle of autonomy is at work from the beginning, with a building built in 1975 by Pierre Eldin, then Professor at the school, then a first expansion delivered in 1999 by Bonte and Chiani, two former students, including the wing arched belt the initial building. Programmed in 2001, the second extension put an end to this autarkic operation which was the construction of the school a pedagogical exercise for some, a theme of practical work for others. Imposing competition, mechanisms of public order have upset the natural inclination of teachers in shaping their school environment, and, consequently, have limited the involvement of students. The intervention of an expert, the Organization of a competition and the resumption in hand of the master of work by the Ministry of Culture clamped the internal debate to the origin of the Refoundation of the school.

Winner of the competition, the architect Nasrine Seraji, Iranian, formed in London and installed in Paris had recourse other than the educational program to build the project. Propaganda at the school, the architect is broken to education: "jet prof" as others are "turbo prof", she shared in the competition between Princeton and Vienna, before taking the head of the Department of architecture at Cornell University in the United States. If immersion Lille, Nasrine Seraji justifies an educational commitment continues in France with the direction of the Ecole d'Architecture de Paris-Malaquais. Could dream better pedigree for a modest expansion of 2,000 square metres (3 million euros HT) Education is at the heart of the approach of Nasrine Seraji whose professional life linked the Liberal exercise and education. This attention is seen in the book delivered at the end of four years of gestation.

Geometry bias

Selected by the jury for its expressiveness, Seraji project draws its strength from the assertion of the large work in reinforced concrete, without dispersion effects and means. Structure and architecture are one, confusing in the book. Concrete is demonstrates its ability to plastic and matrix in the generation of spaces, in footnote admitted the great Italian engineer Pier Luigi Nervi, or Danish architect Jorn Utzon of Sydney Opera House, all kept proportions... In fact, this architecture displays an ambition of civil engineering without common measure with its rather small size. Consisting of gantry cross on two levels, the structure induces a geometry bias, redouble elevation open posts in V. The porticoes of the top level resume those bottom by metal shroud tense the cross above. Beams and poles with variable inertia express efforts and loads, drawing keen a book while large arms and legs set.

Emphatic, this structure addresses the range of 25 metres required by the large (500 m2 on 6 m high) workshop dedicated to the construction of the prototypes on the ground floor of the building. The first floor, it prints its oblique mark by guiding the partition of the rooms and cutting the sheds in roof. Display force is there is Enigma, segregation blurring the face. Gantries are partially visible and the lines hidden in the removable bulkheads draw a complex puzzle over the large workshop open to the Park.

Retrospective anxiety

Be a lesson in building for students, this structure represented a challenge for the architect, the Office Tech Engineering and the SAE company awarded the contract after a first unsuccessful tendering. This last is is taken to the set of this demanding architecture. "Debated at length, the method of implementation chosen for these cross portal combines prefabricated posts in situ and cast beams in place, with a room cruciform for cornerstone and an anchor of the shroud", explains Nasrine Seraji. "Etayés during construction, the lower gantry is released space of the large workshop to the completion of the upper gantry suspending structure", says the architect, who admits a retrospective anguish.

This registry confining Expressionism pre-paid palette reduced raw materials highlighting the structure. The grand atelier is crowned of reinforced glass sections that let appear the ghostly frieze of the Poles in V. Gables and the volume of the floor are made of sails or concrete panels which the striped matrix and black hue evoke corduroy in the traditional costume of the architect.

Inside, it is rather the bure dress which dominates: Eternit plates screwed divisions and shields marry raw concrete and cement floors. Furniture in medium, the woodwork varnished steel and metal trays perforated used in false acoustic ceilings are the monastic atmosphere. So extended, the school has now three distinct architectural buildings which seem to push that to assemble. This lack of architectural continuum over three decades is symptomatic of a discipline that seeks and contradicted himself, demonstrating the vitality and diversity.