École Centrale, Saint-Étienne
01 · The project
Refurbishing a building of the École Centrale in Saint-Étienne: a long volume from the reconstruction years, whose façade has had its day but whose structure holds. The project does not replace it, it adds a skin to it.
02 · Programme & uses
That skin is made of prefabricated modules, soft green, set in front of the existing building. The module is the project’s unit: it is drawn once, in elevation and axonometric, and its repetition makes the façade. Pivoting sashes allow opening without breaking the rhythm. At night that rhythm turns over: the façade goes dark and it is the lit rooms that draw the grid.
03 · The site
The existing building shows the starting point: a long white block set in the middle of the car park, with no ground of its own, behind a fence and rows of cars. The project gives it back a meadow at the foot of the façade, and that may be the most visible gesture, even before the colour.
- Location
- Saint-Étienne (42)
- Year
- 2025
- Area
- Bâtiment R+3, double peau
- Programme
- Rehabilitation: a double skin of prefabricated modules, pivoting sashes
- Client
- Taite Paillet Architecture
- Commission
- Architectural intern · design contribution
- Status
- Competition 2025 · interning alongside Tom Soulebeaud
05Documents
06 sheets
