Image courtesy Studio Gang via Twitter
Studio Gang has released renderings of its Center in Paris project that will create a new hub for scholarship and cultural exchange in the city. Comprising an academic center for the University of Chicago and a mixed-use residential building, the project—designed in collaboration with PARC Architectes—will bring vitality to its neighborhood with biodiverse green spaces and an architecture that weaves the block—both physically and intellectually—into the fabric of the city.
The academic building’s vertically articulated stone façade selectively opens and closes, revealing public activities while densifying around more private spaces for study and research.
To support a lively dialogue between the university and greater communities, spaces shared with the public are strategically located and connected to the outdoors. University spaces are organized into a vertical campus whose classrooms wrap around a central, day-lit interior culminating in a biodiverse roof garden. Public art as well as a visual and material interplay between the buildings evoke the warp and weft of a textile. Lush outdoor green spaces atop and between the structures provide places for socializing, study, and rest as well as habitat for urban wildlife.
In alignment with the ambitious environmental standards of the City of Paris, the design minimizes carbon footprint while optimizing energy performance. Its combination of active and passive strategies includes the use of locally sourced and sustainably harvested materials.
