| Location: Rue de Saintes Peres, Paris | Category: International Tender - Competition - mixed use | Size: 12,750SQM | Status: Abandoned due to funding
The Quartier of St. Germain is typified by the diversity of its activities and the richness of its cultural and academic life. A prime tourist and shopping destination, Saint Germain is also a residential Quarter that offers a particularly rich urban lifestyle. Whether by chance or by design, the range of activities tend to cross fertilize and re-enforce the vibrancy of the "Quartier." There are, however, exceptions. L’école de Ponts et Chaussées is an inaccessible institutional building. The rather impenetrable façade along rue du Pré–aux-Clercs is, in many ways, the clearest expression of its uncommunicative urban role. Students and academic institutions of excellence are an integral part of the Quartier, yet L’école de Ponts et Chaussées has aged badly. Our manifesto was to reintegrate l’Hôtel des Fleury within the urban context of St. Germain and to develop a diversified and enriching program that would re-address the current imbalance that characterizes this section of Rue des Saints-Pères while responding to the particular residential nature of Rue du Pré–aux-Clercs. Although the scheme won the support of the local municipality the project was finally awarded to another group for financial reasons. The new owners have unfortunately done little to the building beyond re-leasing it to an alternative academic institution.