Inside the Campus Descartes, of the École Superieure d’Osteopathie, near Paris, the architecture firm Atelier Villemard et Associés recently built a 9-storey building which houses 207 student rooms.
The design concept rotates around two elements – in addition to the fine dialogue between concrete and wood that distinguishes both the interior and the exterior – the large full-height atrium, and the orthogonal grid that marks the spaces both internally and externally once again.
“With its location and its exceptional interiority, the building represents a new reference point.”
Atelier Villemard et Associés.
Although internally it seems a bit like being in the Panopticon, the prison designed during the 1700s by Jeremy Bentham, whose main feature was to let the guardians to observe all the detainees constantly from a single location, the result is truly remarkable.
I don’t think it will become a new landmark in Paris, but it certainly represents an excellent example of good contemporary architecture, especially internally.
