École Nationale Supérieure D’architecture by De Marc Mimram

Marc Mimram, the Paris based architecture and engineering practice, has completed the first phase of Strasbourg School of Architecture (Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Strasbourg).
Located in the heart of the city, La Fabrique (The Factory) is a new 4,500m² building that will be complemented by the refurbishment of the adjoining building, Le Garage, to be completed in December 2014.
The teaching spaces of La Fabrique are projected into the streetscape, encouraging students to engage with the building’s context and allowing the city to permeate the ribbed veil of the facade.
The transparent plinth gives the feeling that a gravitational force has pulled the building upwards leaving it to rest on stiletto heels, allowing the city in underneath. The building’s massing consists of two-storey blocks stacked on top of each other.
The lower block cantilevers over the transparent, ground floor plinth, while the uppermost block steps back, providing the maximum volume within the constraints set by the planning regulations.
The blocks are unified by the common envelope, a semi-transparent aluminium skin that cloaks the glazed boxes. A metal curtain glides between large bay windows to frame views across the city, its homes and its cathedral.
By day, the building reflects the changing light as the sun moves around the facade; by night, inside and outside are reversed, revealing the building’s skeleton and morphing between transparent and opaque.
The new school was above all designed as a tool for its students, a means to experience the study of architecture and to provide shared spaces in which to interact, collaborate and discover.
The building’s name, La Fabrique, refers to the history of the site, but also echoes the study of architecture: the construction of knowledge and the knowledge of construction.