all images © Julien Lanoo

JDS Architects has completed its new project ''Euralille Youth Centre'' in Lille city of France. The project is designed to accommodate the three ages of mankind, from birth, through adolescence, and into adulthood; a volume that captures the stages of human growth. JDS's design approach is based on a historicity of Lille and the studio states that over the past twenty years Lille has become a European hub; a destination for business and congress, a great place to study and live and also a tourist destination. It is a city with a turbulent history of conquest and reconquest, a heritage as an important medieval city and later on enjoyed and sometimes suffered the title of Northern France industrial capital.

view from the street and presents a sculptural mass with a small openings on facade

JDS's Euralille Youth Centre emerges from the idea of creating an ''urban catalyst'', accommodating three distinct programmes on a triangular site. The design studio places a program in each point of the triangle we offer maximum privacy while allowing them a closeness and continuity of space, organized around a garden, like a cloister of calm in the center of the city. The lifting of the mass of the programme at the corners illuminates and activates the adjacent public spaces and creates a continuity from outside to inside of the building. 

front facade of Euralille Youth Centre- attracts with its colorful vertical pieces on facade

the interior of youth centre is introducing flexible spaces -wood and renforced concrete dominate the space

some working spaces are embedded into the carved wall that enhances productivity in working spaces

courtyard presents a triangular space 

see previous WA media coverage

Project Facts

Project: youth hostel, kindergarten, office

Size: 6.980 m2

Location: Lille, France

Crative Authorship: Julien De Smedt

Budget: 12.150.000 EUR

Client: SAEM Euralille

Team: JDS, EGIS, Agence Franck Boutté Consultants, SL2EC

Project Leader: Renaud Pereira

Type: Invited Competition

Status: 1st Prize 2011

Project team: David Dominguez Iriondo, Edna Lueddecke, Felix Luong, Francisco Villeda, Heechan Park, Henning Stuben, Leonora Daly, Marion Julien,Priscilla Girelli, Sandra Fleischmann,Wouter Dons

> via JDS Architects