Location: Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France.

Architect: Auer Weber.

The French Ministry of Education has provided funding to renovate university infrastructure and rethink outdated learning concepts. The new Learning Centre “Innovation” is part of this initiative and aims to prepare for the future by incorporating technical progress and new methods of communication. The existing circular library building was reinterpreted and spatially extended to include a new events area, cafeteria, and experimentarium. The design chose to forego a typical extension building and instead created a tall landscaped element that surrounds the volume, creating a new main entrance and integrating new spaces into the concept. The existing facade was kept and the circular form was repeated, scaled, and offset to create new spaces with various functions, architectural qualities, depths, and illumination. The division of interior spaces follows the composition between the existing building and the new landscaped plateau. The Learning Centre offers many different learning environments, and the building sketches a landscape of knowledge surrounding a central hall as a communicative area. The design allows for an extension of the library to the exterior space by working with the inner facade of the circular building. The new Learning Centre presents the university as a modern institution that can connect innovation with tradition and dissolve spatial boundaries in learning areas.

Photo credit: Aldo Amoretti.