The art school is part of the new ARTEM University campus, where Art, Technology and Management are brought together in a cohesive urban composition. Guided by the campus master plan, inspired by the geometry of the site and its specific urban position, the art school occupies the northern edge of the campus in an iconic complex of two separate buildings. The four-story, parallelepiped Vauban building, and the five-story, polyhedron ›Signature building‹, are connected by two glass structures forming an inner courtyard. Behind it, the campus park unfolds.
Nicolas Michelin drew up the master plan for the ARTEM campus on the site of the former Molitor barracks: A long gallery acts as an interface to the city and connects the universities, which had to be designed with an iconic gable roof as the “maison-signe”, the emblem of the university building. Michelins combination of a small-scale structured row of buildings and a connecting major form reacts to the urban scale – the opposite buildings are narrow, three to four story townhouses typical of Nancy.
Our building for the University of Art and Design interprets the master plan for the ARTEM university campus in a very individual way and places a calming accent at the end of a colorful row. To contrast the other colorful buildings, the ENSAD shows an anthracite envelope that harmonizes well with the slate roofs of the neighboring barracks.
The clear spatial organization gets obvious as soon as one enters the building. The dark signature building houses administrative offices, study rooms and spacious exhibition areas while the lower Vauban building houses workshops and a studio for video and photography. A glazed structure with a two-story entrance hall and a cafeteria on the upper floor connects the two wings. The partly elevated transverse auditorium on the west side defines an inner courtyard and provides a connection to the park. In spite of their different external appearance, the load-bearing structure of the two buildings is identical: The offices and workshops are grouped around a core of exposed reinforced concrete that incorporates the vertical circulation, sanitary spaces and services.
The outer appearance of the two structures is fundamentally different: The “signature building” facetted like a crystal has a shell made from trapezoidal perforated anodized aluminium. The irregularly arranged windows are a result of the different ceiling heights; they also follow the logic of twisting the building’s polyhedron shape into a crystalline form. The monolithic parallelepiped façade of the Vauban building is clad with fiberglass-reinforced concrete panels. Large projecting bay windows give the façade its sculptural quality. Colorful curtains set attractive accents on the courtyard side.
Looking very compact from the outside, the interior of the art school is spacious and generous. Raw materials – exposed concrete, white surfaces, steel, wood, expanded metal or wood wool panels for sound absorption – in well-lit rooms create a solid, stimulating backdrop for artistic work.
These spaces range from three and a half to four meters high in the studio wing, where the photo studio with its void even extends over two floors and measures up to six meters in the top-lit hall in the attic of the “maison-signe”.
Material Used:
1. Facade cladding: Trapezoidal perforated anodized aluminium, fiberglass-reinforced concrete panels
2. Builder: Fayat Bâtiment Lorraine, Metz (FR)
3. Metal construction: Ateliers Bois et Cie, Chaumont (FR)
4. Heating & sanitary: Sanichauf, Sarrebourg (FR)
5. Ventilation & air conditioning: Engie Axima, Metz
6. Electrics: SDEL EASI, Vandoeuvre lès Nancy (FR)
7. Interior joinery: Keller, Houdemont (FR)
8. Drywall construction: Idéal Plafond, Vandoeuvre lès Nancy (FR)
