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AgroParisTech — Saclay Campus

AgroParisTech, an agricultural higher education and research establishment, has grouped its activities in the heart of the Saclay plateau, a scientific cluster.

Designed in collaboration with Marc Mimram Architecture & associés, this campus is composed of eight distinct buildings around a 2-hectare park: an entrance building, the Forum, five teaching and administration buildings and two large buildings that accommodate laboratories meeting international standards.

Our mission was to design the research laboratory buildings (L1 / L2 / L3 laboratories with S1 greenhouses and C3 climatic chambers) as well as an underground car park.

The research buildings offer large, scalable “platforms” with the aim of providing rationality of use and functionality. These modular research platforms make it possible to integrate variations in the organisation of the entities of each research axis, attenuating the partitions between the fields in a holistic vision of research.

Client : CAMPUS AGROS SAS

Location : Palaiseau, France

Surface : 37 600 m²

Status : Delivery

Date : 2022

Key points

Brick facades.
Natural light, patios.
Laboratories L1, L2, L3.
Greenhouses S1.
C3 climatic chambers.
Evolving platforms.

Performance environnementale

RT2012
HQE Tertiary Sector Building Certification - excellent ranking
Effinergie +
CEP RT2012 Label - 30%
Design of a glazed hall space with a greenhouse-like operation.
Use of plants and water in bioclimatic design.
Earth-based building materials.
30-year energy commitment based on STD calculations.

Download the project sheet

Intentions

The research buildings offer a malleable, flexible environment that can be adapted to the researcher’s dual work rhythm, with, on the one hand, personal concentration and, on the other hand, conditions for interaction, exchange and meetings with the scientific community in constant evolution.
Thus, the well-being of the individual and interaction within the group form the basis of the architectural concept of the Agro Campus.

The large platforms are divided into different spaces that correspond to the different times of research:

The time of research, withdrawal and introspection, with evolving and modular laboratory trays.
The time for group work, in the meeting rooms.
Time for meeting, informal exchange and collective intellectual emulation in the convivial spaces

Create places where new ideas can emerge, unexpectedly, by chance, in the course of an impromptu discussion.

A hybrid and shared identity within the campus.

AgroParisTech-INRA combines distinct pavilions and buildings, whose volumes express their specific functions in a coherent whole. The symbolism of the rhythms, repetitions and alliterations of the facades asserts the shared identity of the AgroParisTech-INRA Campus: uniqueness is expressed here through compact brick volumes, with large openings onto the landscape, illustrating openness to others, to the world.

The volume of the research buildings thus resembles vast monoliths anchored to the ground, pierced by large loggias open onto the panorama, allowing abundant light to penetrate to the patios, to the research centre. The rhythm of the office and research facades is based on the 1.50 m module with a sub-multiple allowing partitioning into 10 mm², 15 mm², 23 mm², 30 mm², 40 mm² and 50 mm² offices.

Team

Lead Architect:

Marc Mimram Architecture & Associés.

Associated Architectes:

Patriarche
Lacoudre

Credits:

Programme

Education

Offices

Public

R&D-Labs

UNESCO

Residential care home