Condette, France

Completed 2016

 

 

Winner, World Architecture News Wood in Architecture Award 2018

Nominated, European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture -Mies van der Rohe Prize

Special Commendation, GAGA Awards, the Galvanisers’ Association

 

 

The building's design process involved making physical prototypes in our studio of elements such as facade cladding, balcony fronts and bamboo screening; further scale models were made by Aérodynamique Eiffel in order to test and define the building's unprecedented natural ventilation system. The project was presented during design to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and theatre director Peter Brook (a longtime guide of practice director Andrew Todd). The construction process took 2 years, beginning with a sheet-pile foundation system, concrete basement and then the spectacular erection -in only 7 weeks- of the building's all-wood superstructure. We visited the Merk factory near Augsburg to observe the unprecedented fabrication process of the building's all-curved CLT structure.

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Inside the building (above ground) there are no skirtings: the CLT meets the end-grain oak tile floor directly, and exterior rainscreen larch battens are brought inside on convex surfaces. Exterior pathways are finished with crushed mussel shells, a reference to the courtyard of the Rose, whose archaeological remains were found to contain a large quantity of hazlenut shells in the yard. The 12-metre dendrocalmus asper bamboo poles, sourced by the Bambouseraie d'Anduze in Bali, are held off the ground on galnaised steel feet and clipped to a cantilivered circular frame at the apex.

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See also for this project: Exteriors  /  Auditorium  /  Process  /  Construction  /  Servant  /  Site

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DETAIL magazine published an in depth study of the building.

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Client: Conseil Départemental du Pas de Calais

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Size: 1233 m2

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Budget: 4.3 million euros (construction cost before tax)

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Team:

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Studio Andrew Todd architects, auditorium and landscape design

Niclas Dünnebacke

Philip Mellor-Ribet

Bridget O'Rourke

Nadia Raïs

Solveig Rottier

Andrew Todd

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L+A Landscape Architects

LM Structural and Environmental Engineering

Charcoalblue Acoustics and Theatre Consultants

Bureau Michel Forgue, Cost Consultant

Cabinet Casso, Fire Engineering

 

 

photos © Martin Argyroglo

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