A light, gossamer-like façade design envelops the Lumen, a learning centre designed for the University of Paris-Saclay. Located on the outskirts of Paris, the educational building, designed by Beaudouin Architects and MGM Arquitectos seems to ripple, with the thin metal slats enveloping the structure creating an interplay of substantiality and insubstantiality. With the volume of the block lifted slightly above the terrain and the lace-like white exterior accentuating this feeling of airiness, the solid volume is rendered effervescent; as the architects describe, a cloud floating over the land. Trees peek from behind the curtained façade, blurring the tangible boundaries of the building and the natural landscape is allowed to interject within the building, further underscoring the illusion of a solid incorporeality.

The French architects have previously worked with a similar façade system in their design for the Médiathèque Charles Nègre in Grasse where the designers used the punctured façade to resolve the feeling of constriction induced by a dense urban context. Here the constraint of a triangular plot abutted by a metro line results in an expressive structure defined by a series of curved lines, softening the angularity of the site. “We worked on a geometry and counter-curves which give this expressionist appearance to the building to escape the impression of constriction of the triangular geometry,” the architects explain, speaking about working with the challenging site. “The presence of curves gives movement to the volume and achieves an impression of flexibility. The problem with a site forming an acute angle is that it gives the feeling of narrowness while we seek to expand the space, to make it breathe.”

Negotiating degrees of openness within the site, the visitor enters the cocoon-like façade—which is supported by a forest of white metal columns—to emerge into a space where the landscape design of an existing park creeps into the building. This continuity between the exterior and interior of the public library is further accentuated by the porous architecture; soft waves of natural light filter through the façade and the beams and wooden slats in the ceiling. To the north, parallel to the elevated metro viaduct, the building opens out, allowing the activities taking place in the forum to be visible from the outside. This shaded permeable space that facilitates the movement of students from the nearby metro station to the building also incorporates outdoor seating, one facing the metro side and the other inviting visitors into the interior space.

The atrium of the library design serves as a space for congregation, with a central void allowing students, teachers and other researchers to get a sense of the activities on different levels. A skylight fills the space with natural light and glass facades induce the feeling of working and reading among the trees. From the atrium commences what the architects describe as an “architectural walk” with the building designed as a “continuous ramp”, one space leading effortlessly to the next, upwards till one reaches the reading room meant to be secluded from other activities. “We think that it is not appropriate to go directly from one place to another, the inner journey, the walk, is the moment when we have the feeling of a slowing down of time. This is why we almost always use ramps to access the main areas of a project,” the team elaborates about the fluidness in the circulation design.

The “continuous ramp” connects the various work areas, public spaces and reading rooms. The main reading area at the highest level of the building is a tranquil space for staid contemplation. The airy interior design, finished in wood and a light colour palette creates a calm and pleasant environment for the space’s inhabitants. Further, longitudinal skylights create natural and homogeneous lighting conditions throughout the interiors. While the primary functional programme of the building is to serve as a library for students of the university, the Lumen also includes a restaurant, an independent auditorium, an exhibition space and study rooms.

Speaking about the evolving nature of library architecture and the need to incorporate various cultural and social functions to make such spaces more accessible, the architects share, “This tendency to enrich programs with complementary themes does not only concern libraries but also affects museums, universities and a large part of public buildings. This allows for greater use and gives a more urban dimension to the buildings. We design a museum, a library and a university as an extension of the city. With our students in Paris, we are working on the idea that the interior space of a building could be the equivalent of a public square. An urban square surrounded by a library, an auditorium, an exhibition hall and a café. All of these elements can be found in an interior space designed in three dimensions. This is the notion of ‘interior urban space’.”

Further elaborating on the conceptual underpinnings of the building, the architects emphasise the relationship between architecture and time—how architecture directs time—forming a central enquiry for their work and the notion of a “slow architecture”, one that allows inhabitants to pause, rest, reflect and just be. “Architecture must build a place where time can rest, we conceive architecture as a machine to slow down time,” they state emphatically. The slow walk to the silent reading rooms, the connection to nature and the changing nature of daylight through the slated exterior walls, all lend the interiors a sense of serenity, exactly this slowing down that one expects from a space where one can lose themselves in books.

While the material language of the design, and the very light treatment of the structural components suggest a building that seems to float over its context—an “unbearable lightness” as the architects state, recalling Milan Kundera’s novel—there is also a strong emphasis on the relationship between spaces and light in the building. “We wanted the light from the Lumen to be soft and vaporous,” they explain, “We have often worked with light in its ability to be reflected by opacities distributed throughout the building, but in Saclay, we wanted to retain it, slow it down in its movement, keep it inside as if it were floating in the air.”

A cloud, material yet vaporous. A negotiation of the immateriality of light with the structure’s staid materiality, the design becomes a search for something which makes one slow down, an experience that transcends mere function. As the architects reflect, “Architecture has always been a science trying to raise heavy masses, since the pyramids and the Greek temples. Architecture is a struggle with gravity, a struggle against heaviness.” The softly lit Lumen learning centre floats above the French grassland.

Project Details

Name: Lumen of the University of Paris-Saclay
Location: Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Client: University of Paris-Saclay
Architect: MGM arquitectos and Beaudouin Architectes
Design Team: Emmanuelle Beaudouin, Laurent Beaudouin, Mandataire, Sara De Giles, José Moralès Associés
Collaborators:
Project Manager: Noémie Gaineau
Implementation Project Manager: Yuning Song
Site Project Manager: Jeremy Bedel
Structural Engineer: Jean-Marc Weill C&E-Ingénierie
Fluid Engineer: Bea
Area: 6900sqm
Year of Completion: 2023