Éco-Campus | Périphériques MARIN+TROTTIN Architectes

The Eco Campus du Grand Paris is part of the transformation of the Domaine Chérioux landscape complex in Vitry sur Seine.

In response to the demanding and innovative program that brings together three Parisian CFA (apprentice training centers) and offers apprenticeships in different trades in the same place, we have designed a demonstration building, a showcase for the skills taught. This is a unique opportunity for young apprentices to learn a trade and discover the trades of other journeymen with whom they will work.

Set up like a village, the Eco Campus is made up of 6 buildings on a tapered triangle of 150m by 50m. To the two north/south crossings separating the 3 blocks of the urban plan, we added an east/west crossing that bisects the composition. This central service becomes the main place of uses.

On the double height of the workshops on the ground floor, the interior street, which gathers from the hall designed as a public square, distributes and organizes the site. It is covered by ETFE balloons supported by a traditionally assembled triangulated wooden framework.

The brickwork on the façade is in keeping with the Chérioux buildings opposite. The choice of materials and their implementation contributes to the value of learning how to do a good job.

A metaphor for the factories that once existed on the site, the project reinterprets the angular plans and varied layering of the industrial buildings of the suburbs, as well as the covered workshop hall, to create a totally contemporary place that takes place in history.

The Domaine Chérioux: in historical continuity, rediscovering urbanity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Adolphe Chérioux, then president of the Conseil Général de la Seine, start the construction of a departmental orphanage in Vitry-sur-Seine. Previously occupied by nurserymen, the 36-hectare site known as "La Nozaie", acquired in 1919 by the General Council, was chosen to house the facility. The realization is entrusted successively to the architects Jules Lavirotte and Henri Gautruche. In 10 years, four primary and vocational boarding school buildings for boys and girls, a kindergarten boarding school as well as an infirmary, janitor's lodgings and outbuildings were erected around a central lawn of 8 hectares. In 1936, the Chérioux estate housed 1200 children.

The estate was restructured in 1973 with the creation of four residential homes and three educational establishments: a middle school, a high school and a departmental school of childcare. At the end of the 1990s, a branch of the University Paris-Est Créteil was inaugurated there, with the installation of an University Institute of Technology. In 2006, the Val-de-Marne Departmental Council embarked on a process of upgrading the entire site. In 2011, the estate was designated as a "ZAC départementale Chérioux", the development of which was conceded to the development company Sadev 94.

It is in the heart of this unique historical and landscape heritage that the Éco-Campus du Bâtiment, the largest training center in Île-de-France dedicated to the building trades, is located. It is the first building in the ZAC Chérioux, which will become the "Chérioux Campus". The rehabilitation and renewal of this architectural heritage is aimed at developing a job-research-training center that will also focus on health and senior care, as well as a health and digital engineering school.

"The Eco-Campus du Bâtiment embodies the realization that the necessary digital and energy transitions go hand in hand with an evolution in skills and professions. This is how the idea of pooling the know-how, experience and ambitions of three CFAs (Center of Apprentice training) came about: the Maximilien-Perret CFA, for roofing, plumbing and HVAC trades; the Delépine CFA, where electricity and electrical engineering will be taught; and the GESTES Formation CFA, for finishing trades.

To date, the Éco-Campus du Bâtiment offers some twenty diplomas from CAP to Bac+3 in work-study programs in electricity, plumbing, roofing, finishing and surface embellishment. The Eco-Campus project is to develop by forging links between building professionals and public and private training providers in order to offer a complete, attractive and relevant training program in line with market needs.

The cost of the Building Eco-Campus is nearly 38.5 million euros, financed by the building industry's professional organizations (15.15 million euros) and by local authorities (23.35 million euros), including 12.96 million euros from the Île-de-France region, 2 million euros from the Val-de-Marne department, and 0.5 million euros from the Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre. This project is part of the major investment plan (PIA) financed by the State to the tune of 7.89 million euros.

The Eco-Campus du Bâtiment thus intrinsically links the economic, social and ecological dimensions in order to meet the challenges of sustainable development by training young people and professionals for stable employment."

Jean-Luc Tuffier, President of the Éco-Campus du Bâtiment

A building showcasing know-how

Wood, brick, terracotta, concrete, breeze block, plaster, curtain walls, mirror, galvanized steel, ETFE films, epoxy resin, rubber, anodized aluminum, colored paint: so many simple materials, emblematic of the trades taught at the Éco-Campus du Bâtiment, are put into perspective and sublimated in the whole building. Here, the use of these materials exalts know-how and construction skills. The Éco-Campus du Bâtiment thus becomes a place of demonstration and active learning.

The standardization that governs production, the economy that is made to say everything, and the know-how that is disappearing in favor of simplified assembly methods can be seen as obstacles to be overcome, but also as formidable opportunities to take a "step aside", to propose a new material or a new way of implementing it, and thus challenge companies, giving them pleasure in the work, desire and panache, and enhancing their know-how by creating a common goal of achievement. A vector of creativity and opportunities, the Building Eco-Campus makes students aware of the problems of today and tomorrow by training them in the professions of the future.

"Building a place to train apprentice construction workers is as exciting as designing a school of architecture, the techniques that will be taught will be put into perspective with the building that houses them. The construction becomes the application of part of the knowledge taught. It is an opportunity for us to show a way of building, to value the simplicity of demanding implementations".

David Trottin, Architect and co-founder of Périphériques MARIN + TROTTIN Architects

A strong environmental ambition

The materials used in the construction of the Éco-Campus du Bâtiment are intended to be consistent with its name and its operating guidelines, and respectful of its environment: optimization of energy performance, reduction of needs, photovoltaic production, and optimized thermal treatment, including the remarkable ETFE membrane covering of the atrium roof. Thus, the building not only tends towards low consumption but goes further and enters the category of "positive energy buildings" (BEPOS).