Month: September 2020

Inside the new architectural complex, designed by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara from Grafton Architects with a special focus on the urban surroundings, LAMM recently finished supplying and installing its E4000 seating systems in the 4 main auditoriums, where meticulous interior-design work and comfort and versatility went hand-in-hand.

 

The Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), founded by the 2014 Nobel Prize for Economics winner, Jean Tirole, recently opened its new building in Toulouse, France. The world-famous research and training centre, ranked ninth in the RePEc world rankings, is part of the “Toulouse 1 Capitole University” and currently accommodates around 2,000 students, including 700 foreigners and 150 researchers.

The imposing new building, designed by Grafton Architects, stands near a gap in the historic city walls, near Place Saint-Pierre and not far from where the Brienne Canal joins the Garonne river.
The project, before its recent construction, required an extensive in-depth study of the local urban surroundings in order to ensure a seamless, harmonious fit with elements of classic Toulouse architecture, including: brick buttresses, ramps and courtyards, bridges, stone walls and towers. In fact, Toulouse is also known as the “pink city” due to dominant colour of its old buildings, made from exposed bricks.

With approximately 15,300 m³ worth of space divided in eight levels, the building is the latest of Grafton Architects’ achievements: On March 3, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara received the prestigious Pritzker 2020 Award, often considered the highest honour in the world of architecture, becoming the first female couple to receive the coveted prize.
In addition to this recent project in Toulouse, they were recognised by the commission also, for their projects with the UTEC University Campus (Lima, Peru 2015), the Offices for the Department of Finance (Dublin, Ireland 2009) and, last but not least, the Luigi Bocconi University (Milan, Italy, 2008) where LAMM was tasked with supplying its seating systems for a lecture hall and various classrooms.

LAMM contributed to the success of these major works by supplying and installing its own integrated and continuous table-and-seating system, the E4000 designed by Lucci and Orlandini. Four different auditoriums were equipped with E4000 tables and seats. The version chosen includes a fixed silver HPL top, seats and backrests upholstered in elegant grey faux leather, and silver coated metal frames. The seating system’s arrangement is in curved, tiered rows.

Project: Toulouse School of Economics
Location: Toulouse, France
Contractor: Université Toulouse 1 Capitole
Architectural design: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara – Grafton Architects
Year: 2020

 

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LAMM’s ability to understand and meet specific project requirements with extreme flexibility is once again revealed in the supply and installation of about 2,000 custom study benches for the new campus of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris-Saclay, designed by RPBW.

 

The École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay (ENS) is a high-level training and research centre, and the recent completion of its new headquarters, located a few kilometres south of Paris, has the ultimate goal of creating a place capable of establishing inclusive links with the city.

Conceived as a large university campus based on the Anglo-Saxon model – multidisciplinary and totally eco-sustainable – the project designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop creates an environment to stimulate research and foster the relationship between disciplines.
In addition to the intensive use of BIM technology that earned the BIM d’Or 2015 (a prestigious French award for the most distinguished project for the innovative use of BIM systems), the project stands out for the high attention paid to sustainability: the building integrates a real “bioclimatic design strategy” that includes heat generators, natural ventilation, passive cooling, rainwater recovery and management and a bioclimatic garden.
The building is in fact composed of four architectural units organised around a large central park of more than one hectare which thus serves as a meeting point but also plays a “micro-climate” role as it is protected from the wind thanks to the surrounding buildings.

As part of this prestigious project, the Research & Development Department at LAMM, starting from the reworking of a mass-produced product and in close collaboration with the designers from Renzo Piano Building Workshop, was called upon to develop an integrated and continuous system of tables and chairs able to fully meet the specific aesthetic requirements of the project while ensuring the highest quality in terms of performance, safety and durability that educational environments require.

In response to the various situations and types of classroom, study benches with fixed or tip-up writing surfaces, with or without armrests, and in upholstered or wooden versions have been installed in the four different buildings – all characterised by tipping seats with self-braking double bracket return that allow a controlled and extremely silent closing of the seat.
More than 1,700 seats, many of which are equipped with electric cabling, were installed in straight rows, at floor level and stepped.

The completion of their recent undertaking thus confirms LAMM’s ability to meet the objectives of flexibility and customisation expressed by the uniqueness of each intervention both through the modification and adaptation of its seating systems and study benches and through the development of original and innovative solutions.

Project École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay
Location Saclay, France
Client École normale supérieure de Cachan
Year of completion 2020
Architectural project Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Design team P. Vincent, B. Plattner (partners in charge)
LAMM supply custom study benches

 

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