This university, otherwise known as the University of Paris IV, is the leading French center for the exact and natural sciences. The new laboratory building Paris PARC will bring together researchers from different specialties on an area of 15,000 m2; one of its functions is to provide them with fruitful cooperation with the business community, the other is to facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue.
The building will be located in the Latin Quarter, on the border of the Jussier campus, a green zone with educational buildings from different eras; on the other side of the new center is the famous Jean Nouvel Institute for the Arab World with a spacious square in front of it. In addition, the building will be erected on an important urban axis leading from the Cathedral of Notre Dame: it is also located nearby.
Architects call their building an "urban experiment". She is the result of the influence of various environmental factors. It faces the rear façade of the campus buildings approaching very close and is open to the park and plaza in front of the Nouvel Institute. Its volume is compressed so as not to deprive the sunlight of the hostel and the audience around, and the main facade is "refracted" so that the reflection of the silhouette of Notre Dame on its glass surface can be seen from ground level.
In the center of the building is a narrow "canyon" atrium with a series of "informal" meeting spaces. Thanks to it, light penetrates into all rooms of the building, most of the internal partitions of which are glass. The atrium has a wide staircase that leads past the laboratories to the rooftop, a green public space, and to the university club. Notre Dame Cathedral will be clearly visible from there and from the upper floors.
The crowded area with heavy pedestrian traffic forced the architects to partially raise the building off the ground to facilitate movement around and around the campus.
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