Françoise-Hélène Jourda

• Price: $11.50
• Paperback—48 pages (2001)
• ISBN: 1-891197-20-7
• Dimensions: 6.5" x 9"
• © 2001 The University of Michigan College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan / Françoise-Hélène Jourda, Paris.

Editor: Brian Carter

Design: John Wagner

Printing: Goetzcraft Printers, Inc.

Sample Selection

In 1982, three years after I had graduated, we won another competition. This was even more significant. It was for the design of a new School of Architecture in France. The new building was to replace the school where we had studied in Lyon and that had subsequently been damaged by fire. This project was a very good lesson that taught us a lot about working with clients and also how to build buildings. Up until this point, we had designed and built a couple of houses locally and had also won competitions to design new housing to be built of rammed earth at Isle d'Abeau and the La Lanterne school in the new town of Cergy-Pontoise. However the design of this new School of Architecture presented a completely different order and complexity of work.

The 90,000 square foot building was to provide all the facilities for a new school on an existing campus at Vaulx-en-Velin on the outskirts of Lyon. Our proposal was to create a large open design studio in which all of the students could have a space to work. In many ways, it was an idea for a space not unlike your own studios that I have seen here at Michigan. Our design grouped the activities of the School so that all of the classrooms and workshops were located on the ground floor and housed within a heavy concrete structure. This base not only provided an actual foundation for the studio above but also a metaphoric one. It designated the place in the school where skills and knowledge would be acquired before being developed in the studio upstairs. As a contrast, we wanted the studio to be a large daylit open place where ideas could be easily explored and the design process freely observed.

Consequently, we designed it to be defined by an open but clearly articulated structural frame that supports a light roof. This stratification is broken along the length of the building by a central public street that provides access to all parts of the school and also serves as a space for exhibitions, discussions and informal meetings. The central axis is terminated by a square that contains a cafe and the library and links the teaching areas to an independent building housing the offices for the faculty and the administration.

In the selection of materials and the detailed design we tried to express how the building works. For example, the structural systems at each level are made explicit. The cellular classroom spaces on the ground floor are defined by the mass and weight of the reinforced concrete walls and the vaulted ceilings. In contrast, the studios above are situated within a single open space that is defined by a structural frame made up of glue-laminated timber columns and beams with specially designed cast steel connections. We designed these connections for the project and each one represents an effort on our part to explain how the structural system is working. Each of the elements of the structural frame is clearly articulated. In this way the very different materials and construction systems are made explicit and the performance of the structure is made obvious.

The studio is enclosed by glazed wails that are shaded by a series of external fabric structures. Double glass walls provide additional insulation in summer while ensuring that solar gains can be utilized to pre-heat air that is circulated in the winter. As a result, the design of the building seeks to work with nature and provide good levels of natural daylight, utilize solar gain and take advantage of the thermal capacity of the structure so as to reduce dependancy on mechanical and electrical systems wherever possible. In this way, the building also becomes a teaching device—a way to help students understand the physics of the building. It shows how the different structural and environmental systems work and demonstrates how the choice of materials, design and detailing of these systems has been integrated to inform the architectural idea.