Grand Equipement Documentaire (GED), Campus Condorcet, Aubervilliers, Paris | Elizabeth de Portzamparc

Structuring the heart of the campus, the Grand equipment Documentary (GED) will become a major
focal point of animation in the Condorcet Campus area, its district and the entire city.
The catalogs of 45 libraries specialized in human and social sciences will be open to all the institutions of the Condorcet Campus, the scholars and to the public.
The building will offer a consultation space with a capacity of 1432 seats, some logistic spaces including archives and reserves, a forum, a cafe, a bookstore, and some public gardens.
Some exhibitions will be open to the public, and work spaces will be available for students and residents.

The street rue des Fillettes, major north-south axis in the neighborhood, will be build around the future tram line (T8), the bus network and the proximity of the metro station Front Populaire (line 12), already covering the main pedestrian flow. This street will be the main access to the equipment.
In the North, a mineral forecourt will highlight the main entrance, and will be animated by future retail outlets. In the south, a large public garden will serve as a secondary entrance, and will contribute to the creation of a park network and a soft paths (pedestrians, bicycles, etc) to form a East-West «green corridor» linking Saint-Denis to Aubervilliers.

The GED building is made of two asymmetrical volumes, connected by two other above the ground volumes, which are delimiting the large central interior forum. Placed on the north-south axis, it is becoming a natural meeting point open to a variety of passersby.
Mainly made of glass the GED architecture is highly open to the outside and enable the passersby to grasp at once the ground floor services, inviting them to discover the inside of the building.
The ubiquitous link between the inside and the outside space offers to the researcher a multitude of outdoor facilities. The inner rooms extended to the outside offers outdoor workspaces, terraces and balconies.

The forum, heart of the equipment, is the first contact between the public and the building and between the interior and exterior spaces. A Great flexibility is provided to embed the future extensions within the newly built surface.
A Set of oblique light gray slabs and metal balconies penetrate the angle of the building to create a «movement» and lighten the masses.

The project is focusing on saving resources, while providing aesthetic, qualitative and functional spaces to maitain a peaceful environment for study and research. The spaces are bright, the treshhold are proposed in hierarchy for the reading rooms, playing between public and intimate spaces, constantly linked to the outside.
All of these provisions provide a passive high performance energy building. Furthermore, the filtration efficiency of ventilation provides optimal air quality.
The forum will be covered by a canopy of «sheds» to bring natural light, warmth in winter, and to bring natural ventilation in summer, ensuring the evacuation of warm air. This system highlighted in the design conception illustrates very well the «low tech» characteristic of the project.
The two main volumes are both equipped with a roof garden terrace, increasing the thermal inertia of the building countering the runoff phenomena related to soil sealing while enhancing the view of the buildings surrounding.
Partially accessible to the public, these terraces, also participate to define the lookout of the Condorcet Campus.