Baumschlager Eberle Architects’ work at IXCAMPUS develops the studio’s ongoing investigation into timber construction, bioclimatic design, and adaptable buildings. Situated at the edge of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye state forest, near Paris, the technology and higher-education campus occupies the landscaped grounds of Château Saint-Léger, a nineteenth-century Anglo-Norman residence.
IXCAMPUS brings technology businesses and programmes from CY Cergy Paris Université together on the site, combining research, teaching, and entrepreneurship. Baumschlager Eberle Architects developed the wider campus masterplan and designed two of its new buildings: the Grande Orangerie, a linear building for research and teaching, and the Incubator, a cross-shaped building for start-up companies, including businesses that manufacture products on site.
Together, the buildings explore different approaches to timber construction and facade design while responding to the existing landscape. Built to accommodate around 1,770 people, the campus brings production, teaching, and research functions into close proximity, with shared spaces designed to encourage exchange between them.
Reworking the landscape
Château Saint-Léger housed the Institute for Steel Research and later the French headquarters of carmaker Ford. In 1991, architect Dominique Perrault rehabilitated the château and extended it with a conference centre excavated beneath and around the existing building.
Baumschlager Eberle Architects adopted a related approach to the relationship between new construction and the park. The Grande Orangerie is arranged as a long, linear building threaded between mature trees, some of which are protected. The terrain was partially excavated to create a gentle depression, reducing the building’s apparent height and helping to maintain views across the site.
An open area at the centre of the composition preserves a view towards the château. The landscape strategy draws on the tradition of English and American university campuses, where buildings are closely connected to outdoor space rather than treated as isolated objects.
The two new buildings are deliberately distinct. The Grande Orangerie follows the restored landscape axis as a linear form, while the Incubator’s cruciform geometry marks the entrance to the campus from Rue de la Croix de Fer. Breaking the programme into separate volumes also reduces the visual impact of the development within the park. The architects compare the composition to Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings, in which distinct forms gain meaning through their relationship to one another. Here, that relationship is established through geometry, landscape, and a shared material language.
Anne Speicher, architect and partner at Baumschlager Eberle Architects, says: ‘In our view, it was essential to establish a strong visual axis towards the château, allowing it to play a more prominent role within the site. This meant not extending the existing buildings, but complementing them with new architectural objects: a bar and a cross. The project was therefore conceived as an overall composition. Beyond the architecture itself, we paid particular attention to creating the spaces in between — those pockets of nature and the broad landscaped lawn that defines the main perspective.’
Two approaches to timber and solar shading
Located at the entrance to the campus, the Incubator consists of four wings arranged around a large central void containing the vertical circulation cores and service spaces. This organisation gives the building its cross-shaped plan.
The Incubator’s most distinctive element is a deep Douglas fir facade conceived as a woven timber screen. The design refers both to the timber framing of Château Saint-Léger and to the branching forms of the surrounding trees. The depth of the facade performs an environmental role: the outer structure acts as a solar filter, reducing summer solar gain and providing shade to the interior.
The architects also relate the design to the picturesque gardens of the eighteenth century and their ornamental folies. Their intention was to take a pragmatic construction system based on layered timber frames and give it the character of a contemporary ‘pagoda’. The architectural expression therefore develops from the construction method, its shading function, and references to the historic landscape.
Between the Incubator and the Grande Orangerie, part of the site has been excavated to create an agora. This sunken shared space connects the buildings and provides another setting for informal meeting and exchange at the centre of the campus.
The Grande Orangerie responds differently to its setting. Large vertical timber elements articulate its long facade and echo the rows of mature trees within the park. These elements contribute to the building’s lateral bracing while also providing solar shading.
Although the two facade systems have different geometries, both use timber and depth to provide solar shading while establishing a visual and tactile relationship with the surrounding trees. The architects describe this as both a tactile and visual connection with the trees of the park.
Timber prefabrication at scale
For the Grande Orangerie, Baumschlager Eberle Architects worked with engineering consultancy Bollinger + Grohmann to develop large prefabricated timber-frame facade elements made using French Douglas fir. Each element measures 12 metres high, 3.3 metres wide, and 700 millimetres deep. The dimensions were determined in part by the maximum size that could be transported to the site by truck.
Off-site prefabrication enabled a high level of quality control and finish before installation. Once delivered, the dry construction system allowed the building envelope to be closed relatively quickly while reducing the amount of work required on site. This was particularly important because the existing campus remained operational throughout construction. The prefabricated elements could be installed with comparatively little noise and disruption, while the scale and complexity of the panels led to the development of bespoke manufacturing tools and processes.
Across the two buildings, timber is therefore used in several different ways: structurally, as prefabricated facade components, as external solar shading, and as part of the architectural relationship between the new buildings and the wooded site.
Designing for exchange and future change
The relationship between teaching, research, and entrepreneurship also informs the internal organisation. Rather than assigning every area a tightly predetermined function, the buildings use a primary structural framework intended to accommodate different arrangements over time.
The approach creates flexible work, teaching, and research spaces alongside generous circulation areas. Naturally lit staircases and areas of circulation are treated as places for informal interaction rather than simply movement between rooms.
Pierre Floch, director of Baumschlager Eberle’s Paris office, says: ‘The challenge was to create a productive interaction between [the worlds of research and entrepreneurship]. To encourage interaction and collective exchange, it was essential to provide a wide range of meeting spaces: a restaurant, cafeteria, library and auditorium, as well as naturally lit staircases and generous circulation areas punctuated by double-height spaces that create visual connections between the upper floors.’
Adaptability is built into the structural framework, with spaces left free from fixed functions so internal layouts can change without major alterations to the building structure. The architects say this could allow the buildings to accommodate uses such as student housing, a hotel, a school, or a museum in the future.
