Ecole de commerce ESSCA, Bordeaux, project: Guiraud - Manenc
Designed by the Guiraud-Manenc firm, ESSCA Business School is the result of conversion operations on the former officers' mess of Bas'de-Niel barracks, a 19th century building in the middle of a ZAC (Integrated Development Zone) that was designed by Winy Maas from MVRDV.
The new building accommodates 700 students, classrooms, an amphitheatre with a seating capacity of 250, a foyer, a rooftop terrace on the 5th floor, administrative offices, a reception hall and outdoor terraces. The uniqueness of the architectural design can be traced back to urban planning regulations, which stipulated the need for complex structures with multiple slopes and a smooth façade and roof that had to be made of mineral material.
The project has removed the roof and all the internal walls and floors of the old building, retaining only the original perimeter walls and constructing a seven-storey building inside this shell. The old walls are like a sheath for the new construction, with both the old and new façades acting as separate, self-contained shells. The walls, roof and, by extension, all the opaque parts of the new construction emerging from the partition walls are clad with off-white composite stone panels evoking the distinctive Bordeaux stone of the old building.
Like a sort of façade/roof continuum, this mineral skin of composite stone is interwoven with glass facets to create sunshades with three standards of glass used for their transparency or reflective properties. The structures fade until they almost disappear, mixing together the interior and exterior, the form and background, the sky and its reflections... This white shell vibrates to the rhythm of the passing seasons and hours and is multicoloured due to variations in natural colours, light and reflections of glass.
Guiraud – Manenc SARL d’architecture ; A. Gilbert Photographe©