In the heart of André-Malraux Park in Nanterre, the former School of Architecture, designed in 1971 by Jacques Kalisz and Roger Salem, had stood abandoned for twenty years without ever losing its spatial power. In 2018, the site was entered into the ‘Inventons la Métropole du Grand Paris 2’ competition, which IT’S won the following year with the ‘Campus du Parc’ project — in partnership with Eiffage Immobilier, the project’s developer, and the Léonard de Vinci Group — designed to accommodate 4,500 students across engineering, business and digital studies.

To inherit means to transform with respect. The Campus du Parc retains 80% of the built area and 60% of the original volume: the administrative wing regains its exposed structure beneath a new cladding of mirrored aluminium and glass. Three new structures made of timber and bamboo house lecture theatres designed as open-plan spaces, extended by external walkways. Between the two buildings, an agora acts as a hinge, its metal structure protected by an ETFE canopy: a hybrid, fluid space, reflecting the needs of a Campus 4.0.

The project responds to twenty years of urban neglect through reconnection: a network of pathways links the site to the Esplanade Charles-de-Gaulle, the RER station and the park; a Partnership-based Urban Project with the Municipality of Nanterre redesigns the Allée Le Corbusier and the entrance square. The landscape, designed in collaboration with Base, echoes the cellular geometry of the Kalisz and Salem modules and slopes gently down towards the park.