The summer has been busy in Lille and our mixed program public building for a combined Kindegarten, Youth Hostel and Business Incubator has topped out!

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.

Our project emerges from the idea of creating an urban catalyst, accommodating three distinct programmes on a triangular site. By placing 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.

All Images © JDS

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

Watch the Video

> via JDS