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Architects: Ateliers 2/3/4/
- Area: 7000 m²
- Year: 2010
- Photographs: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
Text description provided by the architects. The project sets up the entire plot that is allocated. A massive dark concrete support protects the building on his outskirts and notes significantly this limitation. A cross fault creates a transparency in the concrete support, from the Hector Berlioz street to Paul Vaillant boulevard, opening on theses urban spaces the entry, main space of the project composed by the patio and the hall which is called “salle des pas-perdus” in French.
One of the architectural goals of the project was the natural orientation and immediately of the visitor to the jurisdiction of his choice (commercial-court or labour court). For that, the classical courthouse’s square was replaced by a patio in the middle of the building. From the outside place, even before having entered into the building, the public will identify the main interior spaces:
- The reception of the 2 jurisdictions,
- The lost-step room,
- The access of the courtrooms.
In opposition of the dark support, these receptions spaces of the 2 jurisdictions are white, transparent, filled up light. On the massive support is a translucent glass prism containing workspaces. The glass skin preserve the privacy of users: from outside, the translucency blocks prying eyes, while inside this same translucent window lets in views of the entire surface.
This glass prism is like a monumental lantern, an urban center, affirming the institutional status of this building.
Four lights wells and various interiors patios planted dig the building in his center. They offer an inside landscape protected of the urban noises, a calm and serene atmosphere necessary for this institution.
This project expressed by a simple and orthogonal geometry provides a volumetric purified reading:
- Concrete support,
- Glass prism placed,
- Patio recessed.
