« We have succeeded because we are crazy » – Liberation

In Avignon, The creative villa proposes to confront scientific, educational and artistic knowledge to create new knowledge. An event that Release is a partner.

Make the city with the existing: that’s enough to inspire the architect Alfonso Femia and her teamwhich made this ideal one of their specialties (we owe them in particular the Marseille docks and the restructuring of the fridges of Milan). In 2018, they won the competition launched by the rectorate of the Aix-Marseille Academy, alongside the DLAA workshop and landscapers according to the rain. It is a question of restoring the old normal school built in 1887, which became the annex to the college of science. The place was gradually abandoned, until its abandonment in 2014: too energy -consuming, it is also too limited from a technical point of view to accommodate the current equipment of chemistry laboratories.

But the elegant thermal colander is not lacking in assets. Christophe Gillet, partner at DLAA (the agency intervenes with his heritage architect’s cap), remembers his surprise by discovering rue Louis-Pasteur, in the center of Avignon, this central building, with its annex, its concierge and its park so well preserved. A witness to an architecture of the end of the 19th century which is not uncommon, but which has often been very modified, and has aroused only late interest. There, surrounded by stone walls and beautiful trees (plane trees, a few cedars, a cypress …), the old normal school is first imagined, for lack of being able to be contemplated from the start. Nicolas Renard, agency landscaper after the rain talks about a site « Mysterious, charming », which detonates with the surrounding facades by the street. “For a landscaper, a garden in town, it’s an event. It’s a party every time. «  It must be said that an intramuros heritage garden remains a rare object. Here, the choice of rehabilitation has released « Suddenly an incredible land offer, 8,200 m² of gardens and heritage buildings with very high potential » Rejoices Christophe Gillet.

For a total budget, « basic » According to Alfonso Femia, by 16.5 million euros, here is the old faculty of science ready to start his new life. If it had its weaknesses, the original structure held the shock. « The building was so coherent, rational, that the major challenge was to take care of it, » details the architect Paul Rolland de Dlaa. Thanks to its large spaces, well lit, well served, the place indeed offers great adaptability – it has already resisted multiple stories. « We want to guarantee its sustainability, ideally for a century », We defend in Dlaa, where the vigilance was lively not to respond to the only trend of the moment, which would have condemned the place to too fast obsolescence.

However, the transformation was not without constraints. Amandine Aubrée, project manager for Alfonso Femia, specifies: “Our first objective was to keep the geometry and the original envelope of the building. ” The obligation, linked to heritage respect (the site is registered in the safeguarded sector of Avignon), has opened unexpected solutions. Because it is not so easy to bring into the building of the 19th century the ambitious program of the creative villa (two pavilions, offices, artistic trays, an auditorium, a capture studio, a brewery, etc.).

So to repel the walls without moving the original envelope in the shape of a U, the Alfonso Femia team found a parade: lowering the attic floor, which had remained unused, to take advantage of the ceiling height thus obtained by creating a top floor. « We have won a space that did not exist », summarizes Femia. In addition, the networks have been left visible, an aesthetic choice as well as practical. Another work axis: to dialogue the building and the garden, by creating porosities between the ground floor and the exterior. « The garden is like a place, a break space, conducive to meetings. »

Inside, the architects have created three very distinct atmospheres: the ground floor, where the ceiling height is important, shelters events intended for a large audience, including the auditorium with generous openings overlooking the garden. The higher, more restricted floors welcome more individual activities (administrative offices are installed on the first floor). The original materials have been preserved (here, heritage interests have encountered those of the economy and ecology), and replaced when necessary. Thus frames, where the wood was saved in places, by witness to the past, and replaced elsewhere by metal profiles whose aspect does not leave any doubt about their contemporary character. Many cast iron, wrought iron elements, such as railing, joinery, and even some plaster, have also been kept.

This work on the existing requires a certain humility, notes Alfonso Femia. Difficult to be too innovative, too demonstrative in view of heritage constraints; At the same time, it is necessary « To have the courage to assert certain things », pleads the architect. At the creative villa, the transformation of the three -story staircase acts as a declaration: in metal and ceramic, it creates a set of lights and a frank contrast with the existing. « We have succeeded because we are crazy »smiles Alfonso Femia, who evokes the puzzles of the site: a fragmented activity in more than thirty companies and as many subcontractors (a part of which was not specialist in rehabilitation), but also the discovery of mercury pollution in external soils and within the walls of a wing on the ground floor which delayed the site (visibly, on the spill of their potions). This unforeseen event complexed studies, and increased the operation of the operation, regrets the architect. But Ultimately, Alfonso believes it: « This place will give the city a lot. »