LE NEXT – ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE URBAN DEVELOPMENT ZONE Plateau de Saclay - Palaiseau (France) - 2023

Contexte & enjeux

The C1-5 plot called “Le Next” is one of the 4 plots forming the “Central” complex, in the heart  of the Ecole Polytechnique’s urban development zone, on the Saclay plateau.

The southern half of lot C1-5, the first lot to enter the operational phase, is home to a university restaurant program of 2 200m² and offices of 7 000m². Eventually, the two adjoining halves of the lots will form a complete block around a central garden.

The project focuses on the catering offer to companies and students through an intense base programming that weaves strong links with the public space and Agro Paris Tech: self-service and connected space, experimental restaurant, large crossing room, etc.

Above this active base, the tertiary part is developed in two buildings separated by a 10m gap, but connected by a glazed link on te second floor, crossing a suspended garden.
Two monolithic sequences in terracotta and copper represent the evolution of the tertiary code towards a more common language. Anticipating reversibility, we are not building an “office building” but a “building” in short, housing today tertiary but tomorrow accomodations, a residence for researchers.

A famous author has pointed out that sensation is the opposite of “sensational”… The rigour of the design, the subtle repetition of the geometry, finally leads to a kind of “architectural silence”, avoiding the creation of an additional sign in the collection of “architectures” of the district.