Condorcet

A new space for knowledge and innovation located at the junction between the capital and the inner suburbs, the Condorcet Campus bridges the historic academic sites in central Paris with the many university locations already established in Seine-Saint-Denis.

The Condorcet Campus offers researchers and students optimal working conditions through shared services and facilities, including a conference center, a major documentation facility, a project hotel, a residence for visiting researchers, and 450 housing units.

As a place of innovation, the Condorcet Campus at Porte de la Chapelle also responds to the need to break down barriers between practices and spaces. Modular facilities—such as teaching areas and consultation rooms—have been designed to adapt to the latest pedagogical and digital innovations.

The RECH3 Research Building is integrated into the urban strategy of the Campus Park, whose unique typology stems from the pursuit of a balance between the need for a layout conducive to sharing and a reasonable footprint, allowing for serial repetition while preserving pathways and permeability. A dialogue is established between the shared ground and the buildings: porosity and transparency draw researchers out of their offices into the vibrant, tree-lined urban environment—the world of research opens up and becomes visible.

To achieve this, we proposed a segmented volumetry that creates porosity and permeability. This assembly of multiple volumes opens widely onto two patios that extend the park and its pedestrian axis. It is complemented by voids and a through hall. In this way, the substantial mass of the research building on block 3 is harmoniously integrated into the Campus Park through its decomposition into multiple elements.

This building also directly addresses the question of researchers’ workspaces and the possibility of imagining unique areas dedicated to the specific nature of research in the humanities. Our response introduces an intermediate dimension between modules and offices: the “cell.” Its surface area, dimensions, and construction method allow for easy adaptation, experimentation with spatial layouts, work organization, and continuous evolution.

The Project Hotel is centrally located within the campus, making it a key place for interaction and circulation among visitors and researchers. This building is composed of “strata” that are vertically stacked:

• The “shared urban base” is shaped to follow the edge of the pedestrian axis and preserve views and perspectives from the GED exit on the southern part of the campus.
• The hall and meeting room are shared by the two main functional entities: the logistics offices and the site’s central safety/security post.
• The five floors of research platforms in the Project Hotel are organized around a central core that houses vertical circulation and services. The office floors unfold around these cores. The offices are free from structural and technical constraints, offering flexibility, modularity, and adaptability to future uses.
• The EPCS headquarters occupies the top two floors, with the double-height council room acting as a “beacon” on the campus.