Gastronomic Campus, Saint-Lô, Normandy, France | atelier arcau

Leaded by French Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and Normandy Regional Council, this project is to create a whole new gastronomic learning center. It’s located in the heart of Saint-Lô Technopole, a 50 Ha campus dedicated to higher education and research. The building contains innovative tools dedicated to a more performant pedagogy whose goal is to provide qualified and skilled people to companies. Beyond the gastronomic restaurant, opened to public, the campus includes a brasserie, a chic snacking to take-away and a space for oenology. It also integrates a high-performance kitchen for low temperature cooking and a mini amphitheater with videoconference to offer online trainings and Michelin-starred chefs demonstration.

Architecture is a universal engine to attract people, to catalyze energies, to change the game and to strengthen resilience all at once. Tomorrow’s hotels and restaurants will be shaped for people to live, to share, to work and to have fun together. Hotels will become and remain sustainable places with well-being as a key-factor not only for guests, but for staff and local communities all at once. The bioclimatic approach including orientation of the building, nature of the core and shell, size of the windows, choice of solar protection or natural ventilation is a fundamental option for any inhabited place such as a learning center. It must be adapted to each specific morphological, climatological, historical and cultural context. Here, in a transforming context, in-between St-Lô city and rural landscape, the new building and its exterior rooms, create a unifying presence and an original urbanity offering an extreme capacity of transformation over time.

Like a city, the gastronomic campus is a shared living organism encouraging dialogue, emulation and synergies between professors and apprentices from the various centres. In the heart of the system, the covered passage is the backbone of the campus. Just as all distribution system, it is protected from Normandy’s bad weather, it encourages social connections and mutual respect. Despite hygienical and technical constraints, the interior atmospheres are smoothness thanks to thematic patios, absorbing aluminium ceilings and space configuration. The interplay of light and shadow is part of the strategy to bring all kind of cuisine to light. Since its completion in October 2016, about 800 young people, between 15 to 30 years old are trained onsite simultaneously in alternation with practical periods in hotels and/or restaurants.

As in watchmaking, nothing is left to chance. Two key axes order the campus and federate the living areas, the learning centre and the branch office of the Chamber of Commerce: The North-South pedestrian path and the East-West covered passage. Just as meticulous, the light-filtering façade in poplar and micro-perforated aluminium is answering to numerous challenges: thermic performance, light control, needs for privacy, maintenance and aesthetic. Shaped for mankind, landscape and architecture are in the service of higher education & research in gastronomy & oenology. From the kitchen and restaurant to logistic spaces, premises are comfortable and ergonomic. The service courtyard is integrated to the building, embedded inside the vibrant hybrid aluminium & timber epidermis. The five facades are in a courteous dialogue with the city and the Norman bocage. Inside, visitors can experience the backstage of restauration, sharing the contagious passion for gastronomy.

All technical, structural and architectural options are made to facilitate the maintenance and to limit the overall cost during the whole life cycle of the building. The campus is a very adaptable and extensible tool. In a sustainable development strategy, the urban matrix guides, articulates and anticipates the needs of future generations. It will allow future generations to easily upgrade and adapt the campus to the always changing environment.