ESSEC 2020 Business School campus

The renovation and expansion of the higher-education buildings designed for ESSEC, the iconic business school that has been based in Cergy Pontoise since 1973, is the second phase in an operation designed to extend the campus. Due to safety issues, the site does not have any relations with the city and the campus / park interface has become an impassable boundary. In response, the proposed autonomous additions and extensions reflect a more open approach to the landscape environment. The current predominantly hard appearance will be softened by large-scale replanting in order to reintegrate the neighbouring François Mitterrand Park into the site’s overall identity. The original concrete structure of the Research Green Tower is extended by a gallery of double wooden posts. This new interstitial space is an efficient thermal system that regulates solar gains and externalises the meeting spaces and circulation areas. A scalable design and the enormous campus-wide flexibility of use articulate individual and communal areas, enclosed spaces, mobile offices and areas of respite that are conducive to concentration or social interactions. A new augmented-nature patio in the shape of an amphitheatre acts as a bridge between the project areas and the educational areas on the upper levels.