New Headquarters of the APHP Saint-Antoine Hospital in Paris
The Saint-Antoine hospital site is a city within the city. Autonomous in its functioning and permeable to the neighborhood, it has gradually become denser over the century. The new headquarters are built on a plot lined with buildings (up to 10 stories-high) and already used as a relaxation area for the hospital's employees. Respecting this place means respecting the habits of the 3700 employees who work onsite every day.
Through its compactness, the project does not impede the luminosity of the neighboring buildings and frees up a planted area equivalent to 50% of the plot, which is available to all. An amphitheater is hidden under this new landscape. The triangular and radiating shape of the building generates three directions -- it does not turn its back on any neighboring building and all facades are treated with the same care. The glazing is generous and the balconies flow, offering a luminous uniformity to the workspaces and a spectacular view on the life within hospital grounds, on the garden and on Paris for the top floors.
Respect for the existing environment, the preservation of views as well as optimal and flexible functionality over time are all conditions that guided the placement and volume. The design of the facades is based on a sober and largely glazed architectural reading, highlighting the transparent base and the slender balconies.
To keep things balanced, the project offers a green heart in the block compatible with the new program. By planting on top of all the programs located in the base and by reconstituting a hilly landscape, we created a gentle topography inviting people to walk on this new ground.
Being public, this planted area is meant to foster exchange. The layout of the garden is designed to increase permeable surfaces and to accentuate the planted landscape’s continuity. The plant species were chosen among a selection of plants indigenous to the Ile-de-France region.
The continuation of our research into providing spaces for flora and fauna is applied here through the construction of a 390 m² planted wall in collaboration with the company CBC. Continuing the garden, this perimeter wall surrounds the auditorium that supports the planted hill. The substrate forms a continuum, from the permeable ground to the roof garden.
