Internal view © Du Besset Lyons
Internal view © Du Besset Lyons
Daylight view showing perforated aluminium louvers © Du Besset Lyons
Exterior view © VS-A
MEDIATHEQUE D’ORLEANS
Studio : VS-A.FR
Client : CITY OF ORLEANS
Architect : DU BESSET LYON
Contractor : BEL
Location : ORLEANS, FRANCE
All historic monuments in France are surrounded by a virtual 500m radius area to protect them from modern architecture. By coincidence, the distance between the site and the nearby cathedral was slightly more than 500m, so the young Architects (it was their second project) opted for an incredibly modern design.
It was iconic 30 years ago, and it still is. It’s a public media library and every specific part of the program has a specific shape, color, and façade so that the diversity of the program became readible from outside. And every part of the facade had specific challenges to overcome.
See the ‘regular’ facade: it is a fully glazed curtain-wall with external solar shadings. To be able to replace the glasses without dismounting all the exterior louvers, we needed to find a curtain-wall with glass installed from inside.
Such products did not exist in France, but it was a common system in Italy that we transformed into a facade system that perfectly fulfilled our requirements.
Although the louvers are made of 50% perforated aluminium sheets, the level of natural light inside is still very high, even too high sometimes.
Today we would recommend no more than 25 or 30%.