05 2015
May 2015
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21/05 2015

Ground breaking for CMA in Lille

KAAN Architecten, together with PRANLAS-DESCOURS Architect & Associates, officially announces the start of construction of the Cité de Métiers et de l’Artisanat (CMA) in Lille, the winning project of an international competition held in 2007.

The Cité de Métiers et de l’Artisanat is located at the edge of the old city fortification of Lille, in correspondence of one arterial road defining the city center and the new suburban areas. The building is surrounded by a distinctive landscape featuring infrastructure of rail and motorway, embankments, lush greenery with diverse botanical species and artificial topography, in a mix of landscape and horizontality.

The design developed in collaboration with PRANLAS-DESCOURS Architect & Associates (Paris, France), is based on the site’s history and geography and merges sustainability, landscape, architecture and interior design. The monolithic look of the building results from emphasizing horizontality and highlighting the site on two levels: the landscape and the surrounding neighborhood.

The multipurpose building has three main floors with various program: a public ground floor, an educational first floor and a second floor with office spaces enclosing the auditorium at the core of the building. The different areas are separated one from the other by two independent level entrances, by an articulated program division and a clear circulation system giving shape to a solid and simultaneously compartmentalized building.

The auditorium can be used in various ways as well as the magnificent main lobby. Modern and robust materials have been used, while the spaces have been designed with special attention to the human scale. CMA’s transparency and integration of green patios drive visitors through the building thanks to an easy and natural way-finding.

On Friday May 22nd, 2015 from 2.30pm in Rue Abélard (Lille, France) the first stone laying ceremony will be held together with the presentation of the project in the presence of the Ministre du Travail, de l’Emploi et du Dialogue social, M.François Rebsamen, the Président de la Chambre de Métiers et de l’Artisanat du Nord-Pas-de-Calais, M.Alain Griset and the architects Kees Kaan and Jean-Pierre Pranlas-Descours.

The building will be delivered in March 2017.

 

FACTUAL INFORMATION

project name: Cité de Métiers et de l’Artisanat

location: Rue Abélard, Rue du Fouborg d’Arras, Lille, France

client: Chambre de Métiers et de L’Artisanat du Nord-Pas-de-Calais

program: administrative offices, auditorium, main lobby, exhibition spaces, laboratories, teaching rooms, library, educational and study areas, restaurant and parking

architect: KAAN Architecten, in collaboration with PRANLAS-DESCOURS Architect & Associates (Paris, France)

project team KAAN Architecten: Christophe Banderier, Sebastian van Damme, Paolo Faleschini, Raluca Firicel, Michael Geensen, Renata Gilio, Kees Kaan, Maud Minault, Hannes Ochmann, Vincent Panhuysen, Ismael Planelles, Ana Rivero, Dikkie Scipio

project team PDAA: Jean-Pierre Pranlas-Descours, Gustav Ducloz, Maryléne Gallon, Brieuc Le Coz, Anne Roullet

landscape: TN+ Paysagistes (Paris, France)

design: 2007 (competition)

delivery: 2017

GFA: 17.300 sqm

client assistant: Pascal Boulanger Réalisations (Lille, France)

SPS: Elyfec (Villeneuve D’Asqu, France)

bureau de contrôle: Dekra Construction (Lesquin, France)

BET structures: EVP Ingénierie (Paris, France)

BET economy: Martin Guiheneuf Ingénierie (Paris, France)

BET VRD: URBATEC (Bussy Saint Georges, France)

OPC: SARL Francis Klein (Salbris, France)

 

For more information, please contact KAAN press (Maria Azzurra Rossi): press@kaanarchitecten.com.

11/05 2015

The Learn’d – a short film about the poetry of light and space

The short film, directed by Victor Vroegindeweij (The Office for Nonfiction Storytelling, Hazazah Pictures), is a two and a half minutes narrative capturing the Education Center of Erasmus MC, an intervention designed by KAAN Architecten, that transformed an abandoned external atrium into an enlightened inner square.

The Education Center is part of the Rotterdam academic hospital Erasmus MC, originally designed in 1965 by Arie Hagoort (OD205) in collaboration with Jean Prouvé, and recently extended by EGM architecten. Since its completion in 2013, the new building has merged all medical student programmes under one column-free roof.

The narrative bonds the poetry of light and space of the Education Center with Walt Whitman’s written lyric one. A deep voice reciting “When I heard the learn’d astronomer” from Leaves of Grass meets the sharp harmony of forms, diverse material’s temperatures, and ethereal light of the roof geometry in a crescendo of tension. The discreet presence of two young figures, running and hiding themselves, is changing the focus of the stills and gives shape to an unconventional reading of the building’s structure and its elements.

“The Education Center is part of an imposing medical city, a post-war concrete jungle shaped by pragmatism and cost-cut” says Vroegindeweij. “I was surprised to come across this oasis of humanism and softness, at the very heart of it”.

The short film has been realized in recognition of the shortlist nomination for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2015. It is part of the exhibition that opened its doors on May 8th, 2015 at the MUHBA Oliva Artés centre in Barcelona.

FILM CREDITS

film title: The Learn’d

project name: Education Center Erasmus MC

location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands

director: Victor Vroegindeweij

photography: Mick van Dantzig

music: Diederik Ipenburg @ Most

production: The Office for Nonfiction Storytelling www.nonfictionstorytelling.com

 

For more information, please contact KAAN press (Maria Azzurra Rossi): press@kaanarchitecten.com.

To download the short film stills and project images, please follow this link.

 

Synopsis: The Learn’d

In an empty building, a temple of knowledge, movement is detected. Two people in their youth, desperate for meaning, are looking for human contact in a world of facts and figures. The beautiful words of “When I heard the learn’d astronomer”, Walt Whitman’s poem, accompany the stunning imaginary and convey the need to explore reality rather than science, to be human first, and a learn’d after. The same values are embodied by the architecture of the Education Center.

01/05 2015

“Na de afbraak, de opbouw” interview with Dikkie Scipio – ZAAL Z number 12

On December 1st 2014 has started phase 2 of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts renovation. Three years of demolition are followed by three and a half years of building process.

The museum official magazine Zaal Z has interviewed KAAN Architecten partner, Dikkie Scipio together with Jan Severyns and Nathalie Vandebrouck, team and project leaders of the Government of Flanders Facility Management department.

Dikkie Scipio says: “We want to preserve the 19th century museum, so to experience it as it was. The new museum is organized in a very different way and it should lead to a different perception of space”.

You can find the full article from page 18 of the PDF.