Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Windows, DoorEcotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Windows, FacadeEcotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Image 4 of 20Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - FacadeEcotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - More Images+ 15

  • Partner Architect: AGC Concept Architectes
  • Utilities Engineering: CET INGENIERIE
  • Construction Economist: Mazet & Associes
  • Scheduling, Steering, Coordination: IXANS
  • Client: Drome Amenagement Habitat
  • Brunet Saunier Team: Bertrand Renaudin, Charles Bazzaz, Jürgen Fallert, Florian Ligier, Daniel Otero, Pierre Parquet, Joana Skendi, David Tessier
  • Utilities Engineering: CET INGENIERIE
  • City: Alixan
  • Country: France
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Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Facade, Windows
© Edouard Decam

Text description provided by the architects. Ecotox is a unique research centre in Europe. Designed like a projects’ hotel, it welcomes international teams for projects on environmental toxicology and long-term ecotoxicology.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Windows, Facade
© Edouard Decam

This device, innovative in its design, is a hyper modular tool that is very flexible in its adaptation capacity, enabling to house very different research projects from one another, with highly divergent technical and functional constraints.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Column
© Edouard Decam

Beginning of an urban character

With close proximity to the Valence TGV station, the Ecotox Centre is the first building constructed in the Rovaltain ecopark. The project’s aim is thus to offer a common identity for both the scientific community and the Rovaltain site.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Facade
© Edouard Decam

To avoid the project’s monumentality and linear façades out of proportion for this site, the project draws on the program’s very motley constraints to create a play on volumes between the different platforms. The different buildings thus gathered make for a landscape of volumes, a mass ratio that constructs the image of the project and gives off dynamic perspectives.

Plan 01

Façade consistency

The composition of the façade on the scale of a building follows a sedimentation process similar to that of the Vercors massif. Each building applies the same system that links an external insulation ensuring high thermal performances, a coloured metal cladding of which the tones echo those found in the surrounding landscape and a system of louvre horizontal panels that protects one from solar radiation while integrating all the ventilation systems and that offers great flexibility in its implementation. The irregular distribution of the horizontal blades answers to the specific requirements and constraints of the premises (offices, laboratories, technical spaces etc.) and offers for the Ecotox centre a visual interpretation that is unique and rooted in its surrounding.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Image 4 of 20
© Edouard Decam
Concept facade
Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Facade
© Edouard Decam

An entrance sequence

The only exception in the continuity of the panels, the tympanum of the entrance façade is a curtain wall (structural glazing system), screen-printed and linked to supporting shell beams on four levels. Highly exposed to solar radiation, this façade integrates a device of solar chimneys to ventilate in a natural way the conference room of 300 places.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Windows, Door
© Edouard Decam

On the garden side, pantograph openings let the fresh air enter from the garden while the hot air is evacuated to the roof through the solar chimney that is integrated in a façade symbolising the Ecotox Centre showcase.

Section

In the continuation of the entrance court, and under the bleachers of the conference room, the entrance is a vast space without intermediary support points, completely open to the interior garden.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Chair
© Edouard Decam

Real venue for exchanges and relaxation, at the crossroads of the scientific platforms, this open space organizes the internal functioning and benefits all the users of the centre.

Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture - Facade
© Edouard Decam

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Project location

Address:26300 Alixan, France

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
About this office
Cite: "Ecotox Centre / Brunet Saunier Architecture" 14 May 2017. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/871042/ecotox-centre-brunet-saunier-architecture> ISSN 0719-8884

© Edouard Decam

Ecotox 研究中心 / Brunet Saunier Architecture

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