Bruther + Baukunst

At once rigorous and open-ended, this collaborative project by BRUTHER and Baukunst proposes a new urban model for hybrid programs in transitional territories. Located in Palaiseau, on the edge of the Paris-Saclay development zone, the building combines a student residence, public and private parking, commercial spaces, and communal areas—all within a single, continuous structural system.


Framed by the logic of its site and the rectilinear plan of the campus grid, the U-shaped volume wraps around an open-air courtyard, treating the void as the project’s vital organ. From this central garden, the architecture reveals itself not just in plan or section, but in sequence—open, legible, and rhythmic.


The structure unfolds in stratified layers: a porous ground floor for commercial and communal spaces; two massive, opaque levels for parking; and three more for student housing, culminating in a vaulted attic with duplex units. The contrast is intentional—between the transparent base, the dense infrastructural core, and the domestic volumes above. Access ramps are folded into the building’s mass, turning circulation into spatial drama.


Rather than a patchwork of programs, the building is conceived as a single structural and spatial entity—thrifty in gesture, yet generous in effect. Its modular concrete frame governs a variety of uses without ever losing coherence. The architecture privileges flexibility and future reversibility: parking may someday become offices or workshops; housing could adapt to new formats. It is an inhabited framework rather than a fixed typology.


There is no façade in the traditional sense—just a rhythmic articulation of concrete slabs and removable glass panels, alternating opacity and lightness. The building's monumental calm is not ornamental, but born from functional precision. Yet within this rigor, there is nuance: the attic’s roof vaults introduce domesticity; the garden evokes cloistered quiet; the daily cycles of light, shadow, and occupation animate the raw structure.

BRUTHER and Baukunst navigate the space between infrastructure and home, between collective logic and individual presence. Their project does not impose a singular reading—it accumulates possibilities. A room with a view, and a view with intent.