The billowing curves of the facade were created using a series of prefabricated panels, which wrap around three sides of the Crèche Rue Pierre Budin but are only interrupted by windows on one elevation.

A central courtyard is located at the heart of the two-storey building, surrounded by nursery rooms that accommodate up to 66 children.

A tree-like metal umbrella shades this courtyard and can be seen hovering above the rooftop from the street.

Other projects we've featured by ECDM include a spotty bus station and a residence for students and women in distress.

See all our stories about ECDM »

See all our stories about nurseries and kindergartens »

Above: photograph is by ECDM

Photography is by Luc Boegly, apart from where otherwise stated.

The text below is from ECDM:

Day Nursery in Paris

The project takes place into a heterogeneous district made of buildings of any sizes, of any styles, any periods. It’s an environment slightly old-fashioned, hybrid and disintegrated, typical of the heterogeneous architecture which characterizes the Parisian peri-urban zones.

Above: photograph is by ECDM

Modernity came to complete this disorder : Adjacent to the site, an out of size construction, built in derogation of the property limits (adding a supplementary urban intention parameter), forbids any common denominator, any possibility of creating a homogeneous composition.

Above: photograph is by Benoît Fougeirol

The day-nursery is thus an attempt, for a tiny building of public utility, to exist in an unfavorable relationship in the shade of a twelve story construction which takes light, overhangs and crushes everything.

The program of the day-nursery introduces a small size, a small scale. If the volume comes from the requirements of the project concerning surfaces and scale, the writing of the building results from its specificity. The day-nursery is a horizontal. Protective and introverted, it occupies the ground, interacts with the outside spaces. Developed on two levels, it is organized to get the maximum of light and sunshine, and to by-pass the shade of the giant nearby building.

The project mixes the outside and internal spaces, organizes around a walk the 2 levels in a buckle of small paths and terraces, altering green and mineral areas. From the requirements of the program, it results a monolithic and protective facade. The building is in prefabricated concrete, long-lasting and resistant to the torments of the urban life. The surrounding wall is drilled by translucent and colored windows. These windows have various heights, for a place thought as much for the children than¬¬ for the adults, the parents or the staff.

The housing part is treated as entity. The matter is to propose an autonomous writing to an additional element, both complementary and exterior to the program of the nursery itself, to propose to the future inhabitant a living environment desynchronized from his workplace.

This volume lays on the nursery, slightly out of the building line, in order to give a specific urban writing to this residential space.

The project is a setting of a living place, with its specificities, its needs and also its poetic dimension, the goal is to propose for this tiny program a frame of living that generates as much an emotion with the future occupants (children, parents, staff) than the local residents.

Program: Day Nursery for 66 children and 1 service apartment
Client: Ville de Paris
Architect: Emmanuel Combarel Dominique Marrec architectes (ECDM)
Engineering: C&E ingenierie, Cotracoop (mandataire du groupement d’entreprises), Bonna Sabla et Il Cantiere, Lafranque
Location: 15 Rue Pierre Budin, PARIS XVIII
Site area: 875 m² SHON / 1937 m² SHOB
Cost: 3.1 M€ HT
Finished: 2012
Photographers: Luc Boegly, Benoît Fougeirol

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by ECDM appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are some photos of the recently-completed mixed-use urban block Le Monolith in Lyon, France, masterplanned by Dutch studio MVRDV and designed by five different architects.

The building incorporates social housing, rental property, offices, retail and accommodation for disabled people.

Five distinct sections were each designed by a different architect; the collaborating firms are French architects ECDM, Manuelle Gautrand and Pierre Gautier, and Dutch studios MVRDV and Erick van Egeraat.

MVRDV were responsible for the south-facing waterfront section, where aluminium shutters shield the interiors from sunlight.

When these shutters are closed, letters on the facade spell out the first article of the European Constitution.

See Erick van Egeraat's portion in our earlier story.

See all our stories about MVRDV »

Photographs are by Philippe Ruault.

Here are some more details from MVRDV:

MVRDV completes ‘Le Monolithe’, Lyon

‘Le Monolithe’, an energy efficient mixed-use urban block located in the development area Confluence at the southern tip of Lyon’s Presqu’île, has reached completion. The structure with a total surface of 32.500 m2 combines social housing, rental property, a residence for disabled people, offices and retail. The block is composed of five sections, each one designed by a different architect, following the MVRDV masterplan: Pierre Gautier, Manuelle Gautrand, ECDM and Erik van Egeraat. Landscape architects West 8 designed the public plaza. MVRDV designed the head section which advertises over the full façade the European integration by quoting the EU constitution. ‘Le Monolithe’ has been realized by ING Real Estate Development and Atemi.

Le Monolithe:

In 2004, ING Real Estate Developers had invited a group of international architects to design the masterplan, for which MVRDV was chosen as winner. Based on this masterplan, each architect was asked to design a section which together form ‘Le Monolithe’. The urban superblock is a mixed-use development comprising a mix of social and rental housing, offices and underground parking. The block is characterised by a large interior court with a raised public space overlooking the city, the new marina and a park, in this way resembling the French classical ‘Grand Gallérie’. The block is divided into five sections, each one designed by a different architect in order to achieve diversity and architectural variety. MVRDV is responsible for the head section in the south at the waterfront. Each part is unique in material, composition and architectural expression. The project forms part of the urban regeneration project ‘Lyon Confluence’, a 150 hectare site located at the southern tip of Lyon’s Presqu’île, where the rivers Rhône and Saône merge.

South building:

The interiors of MVRDV’s south facing building are protected from the sun by means of aluminium shutters as a reference to traditional local architecture. Apartments inside Le Monolithe offer a great diversity in order to attract different groups of inhabitants making the block a reflection of Lyon’s population. Offices are divided into separate units of min. 500 m² which are accessed by three vertical circulation cores, providing individual access. Each unit allows for a flexible fit out, depending on the tenants’ needs and requirements. All spaces are naturally lit and ventilated.

In June 2005, when France and The Netherlands voted against the European Constitution, MVRDV decided to redesign the façade and integrate a reminder of the values, ideals and needs of the European Union. When all shutters are closed, the first article of the European Constitution can be read: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”

It aims to advocate a possible ‘Yes’ for Europe in days of protectionism, accompanying the collective EU spirit of the gathered architects. The adjacent sections were designed by French and Dutch architects Pierre Gautier, Manuelle Gautrand, ECDM and Erik van Egeraat. Dutch landscape architects West 8 designed the public space.

‘Le Monolithe’ is one of the projects within the greater scheme for Lyon Confluence which has been developed as part of Grand Lyon’s European Concerto-Renaissance programme, a project supported by the European Commission. The building not only complies with High Environmental Quality (HQE) criteria, such as reinforced insulation, careful selection of materials and rainwater management; further, 80% of the total energy consumed is provided by renewable energy sources. The combination of efficient spatial composition, passive energy (sunscreens, high thermal inertia), thermal and acoustic comfort and an energy strategy that includes heat storage, PV-cells, low-e double glazing, compactness to minimise heat loss, natural ventilation and an environmentally responsive façade system make ‘Le Monolithe’ a highly efficient low energy construction, e.g. heating accounts for <40 kWh/m²/year and hot water <5 kWh/m²/year.

The ambitious greater urban project Lyon Confluence extends the city centre to the very tip of the peninsula by creating diverse neighbourhoods involving retail and leisure zones, parks, cultural institutions, housing, schools and offices, and local public amenities.

See also:

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Monolith by Erick van Egeraat	Rotterdam Market Hall by MVRDV	More architecture stories

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French architects ECDM have completed a residence in Epinay-sur-Seine north of Paris that includes accommodation for students, university staff and women in distress.

The different wings of the complex are identified by vivid colour-coding, covering almost every surface.

Photographs are by Benoît Fougeirol.

See more Dezeen stories about ECDM architects:

Paris Social Housing
Thiais Bus Centre

Here's some text from ECDM:

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The conception of our project joins in a second reading of the landscape of the road of Saint leu, by integrating its history and its transformations to assert the manners and the qualities and reveal the poetry of the place.

The project will have to play the role of revelation of a district in future, articulation of a split up territory, a synthesis of a town planning consisted of industrial and commercial buildings, detached flags of the last century, complexes and public equipments.

The stakes are to impose a politeness on a secondary road, to desynchronize the shelf space built by the rhythm of the automobile, to modify the perception of a landscape having undergone without having controlled it the transformation of its territory. The politeness is there, but very little legible; it is a question of making it the evident presence.

The project foresees the reception on the plot of land of three autonomous and additional programs: a residence for students of 150 housing for 170 residents, 19 housing for researchers or invited professors and housing for women in distresses.

The objective is to create some social coeducation while having for each of the establishments a management with human scale benefiting from synergies between establishments. So the project foresees guard's accommodation, private study rooms, laundry, space out relaxation internal and outer, gardens were fitted out with fruit trees.

In break with a territory which would be too dense to be really plant and too chaotic to be urban, the project reintroduces and prolong the morphology of the fragmented which structured the district, by four buildings of differentiated writings.

Joining the geometry everything in length of the plots of land of the district, built household of wide spaces of full végétalisée ground. In this urban logic, overlaps a geographical logic with a rational orientation of the east-west buildings and the facades protected from the noise pollutions of the voices shod and of the secondary road by effect of mask.

The constructions join the size of the district, in volumes developed on more packed R+2. The volumetrics of each of 4 buildings is specific to become integrated into its immediate environment, manage transitions with existing neighbouring. The global density of the plot of land will be about 1.25, density which seems to us rather strong to be carrier of politeness and rather weak to be able to assure a sewing with the adjoining suburban zone.

Federative element of an ill-assorted district, the project will be urban facade on the road of Saint leu in the North, to become more paysagé and coil up in the continuity of fragmented one suburban very structured in the South.

Project ownership: ESPACIL HABITAT

Project management: Emmanuel COMBAREL Dominique MARREC Architectes (ECDM)

Aliette CHAUCHAT, Chef de Projet

Project management  associed: BETOM, BET
Michel LARSONNEUR, Economiste

Programme: Amicale du Nid et Résidence étudiante

Surface: 9,000 m² HON

Cost of construction     9,041,000 € HT
Calendar (challenge and delivery date): Concours : janvier 2003 / Livraison : Décembre 08

Visual autors

Perspectives: ECDM©

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Paris architects ECDM have completed this 63-unit social housing development in Paris.

It is located between existing buildings, at the intersection of two streets.  A courtyard, hidden from the street, separates the building into two volumes connected by a basement car park.

The front facade is composed of coloured glass in different shades of green.

The text below is from the architects:

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Collage Paris

Located at the intersection of the homogeneous and Haussmannian facades of Gossec Street, and of the disparate architecture built in stages on Picpus Street, the site for this 63-unit social housing program is part of a typical ‘collage-city’ landscape. It is characterized by two ground levels: at the front it connects to the steep slope of Picpus Street, and at the back it borders onto a landscape garden, 1.50 m higher than the average level of the soil. The project aims to link these opposite building typologies and ground levels.

Two buildings,  7 and 6 storeys high respectively, are aligned in parallel at the front and back (north and south) of the plot, and are lifted up on stilts.  The accommodation is concentrated on the street side which leaves a wide open space that reaches the landmark garden.

On Picpus Street, the project is connected to the truncated bow of the Haussmannian building at the angle of Gossec Street, as if the site was a corner plot. It prolongs the fixtures and the components of the architecture of the Gossec Street, proposing a sharp collage. On the east side, the project is aligned with the roof of the smooth facade of a building from the 70's, also continuing the fixture and the components of the adjacent building, marked by a withdrawal that completes the project.

Elevated above 2 parking levels, the ground floor slab appears like a mineral kaleidoscope, which dissolves the disabled access requirements in an opportunistic and playful mid-mineral mid-vegetation landscape. For each apartment or accommodation the exact prolongation of the kaleidoscope generates a free movement of the doors and windows, emphasized by their reflection in the stainless cladding of the ribbons and the ceilings.

One enters the residence through a metallic curtain by a wide porch at the axis of the project, and then each building has its own entrance hall. The common areas are generous, clear, without residual spaces and benefit from natural light.

The project presents 2 colours and 4 specific facades conceived to respond to very specific conditions, all characterized by wide windows, opening onto large terraces or balconies (depending on their orientation) and protected by coloured glass which is treated like sunglasses.

The project proposes the implementation of 64 houses developing a GFA of 4 126 square meters.

Sustainability requirements were emphasized for the conception of this social housing building. Standards for energy use were up to 30% stricter than legally binding standards in France at the time the building permit was delivered.

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Here are some photographs and plans of the Thiais Bus Centre near Paris, designed by architects Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec of ECDM.

The walls, roof and ground surrounding the administrative centre are covered with Ductal, a high performance concrete with a raised texture, which "looks like the world-famous pattern on a piece of Lego."

The primary colours surrouding the building's appertures are intended to reflect the bright graphics of surrounding warehouses and industrial buildings.

The following information is from architects ECDM:

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Thiais RATP Bus Center : Creation of the new administrative building

"As one of the world’s largest urban transport companies and technology pioneer, it is only natural that RATP’s buildings should reflect the company’s image," states Rémi Feredj, Real Estate Manager for RATP. "The Thiais building certainly meets this requirement. It helps to improve the site’s urban landscape. It is the pride of the hundreds of people who will be working there and represents a sign of belonging and a symbol of what we are all about."

Based near Orly airport and Rungis wholesale food market, this administrative complex comprises various services on the site. As well as a secure control center which manages three hundred buses, the new bus center building also houses a rest area with facilities for use by the managers, service personnel and bus drivers. The building was designed by architects Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec from the Paris-based firm ECDM.

The area surrounding the new periurban-style building is cluttered with major brand warehouses and industrial buildings, wide streets and junctions. ECDM’s challenge was to reconcile functionality with integration, and design a relay-type building which blends into the scenery while at the same time forming a modern and attractive focal point. The architects plumped for spatial continuity. Shaped like an elevated plateau, the building looks as though it is rising out of the road or growing out of and fusing with a landscape of unbroken minerality.

This effect is achieved by covering the entire building and a large tarmac strip surrounding it in Ductal, which has a strong mineral homogeneity. This elegant concrete 'skin' runs along the edge of the building before rising up so that the building (including the roof) and road merge into a sigle coherent structure – bestowing the new Thiais Bus Center building with its unique identity.

ECDM (Paris)

The desiners of the new Thiais RATP bus Center building are Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec, founders of ECDM (Paris), set up in 1993. Both are ardent supporters of contextual architecture, taking structure, restrictions linked to function and the socio-cultural concerns of the surroundings into account. ECDM's style combines light, cohesion, and aesthetics. Effective simplicity is also a priority. "One dominant characteristic can be found in the firm’s work, as expressed by Marrec and Combarel themselves. It is the desire to offer simple architecture with rigorous logic and without preconceptions, nostalgia or stylistic concerns."

Designing the Thiais Bus Center provided ECDM with the perfect opportunity to express its practical and reflective approach to architecture. The challenge was two-fold: on the one hand, it was required to meet strict specifications which included housing monitoring, management, reception, meeting and relaxation facilities on the same site; on the other hand, it was required to experiment with new physical and sensitive relationships to materials, including the ultrahigh performance concrete Ductal. In the case of the Thiais project, Ductal is the architect’s trump card, used as cladding to cover the building as a physical, aesthetic element to merge the ground, walls and underside of the building into one.

Balance and unity

When working in the actual context, Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec never have a pre-conceived idea of what the finished building will actually look like. After a lengthy observation and survey phase which generally involves consulting future users, the architects designed an administrative unit which is both ambivalent and suggestive, organically emphasizing continuum rather than rupture.

"Our aim was to focus on the site’s mineral nature and design a building that merged with and grew out of the road," said Dominique Marrec. Built next to the old Bus Center and coach depot – both typical examples of industrial architecture – the new building supplements and yet forms part of the existing site, its cube-like form rising up in relation to the surroundings. The new Bus Center is characterized by the vast extent of concrete surrounding the administrative area and covering the adjacent road which welcomes the constant fleet of buses. The architects wanted to extend the road into the building to give the impression that it had suddenly emerged from the ground like a beautifully risen cake. The idea of designing a 'skin' covering for the surrounding area and the building emerged quite naturally. This skin "creates the impression that the flow of traffic and the building are blurred together, endowing the site with a powerful visual density ".

This skin looks like the world-famous pattern on a piece of Lego, except that it is enlarged and reproduced ad infinitum. It is consistently gray in color and covers the ground around the building together with its walls and roof. Made from tinted Ductal, it is attached as cladding to the building itself and laid flat around the base. In addition, this pattern of regularly repeated studs meets the specification requirements for an anti-slip surface. It is a perfect blend of effect and function. The ease with which Ductal can be molded further enhances the esthetic effect. The top edges of the building are beautifully rounded without the slightest hint of aggression. There is no facadism and no front or back to this building, whose entire structure exemplifies unity from its design through to its style.

A distinctive building

The openings in this monolithic block look like they were cut out of the building after it was built with a giant Stanley knife. But this apparent radical quality is only skin deep. In fact, grace and elegance is evident throughout this building which invites you to enter and wander along its light and airy passage ways, leading directly through the building and out again to the other side.

The different color schemes used to distinguish the various indoor areas together with the spacious offices, generous lighting and attractive indoor patio area, bathed in a pool of light, all bear witness to this elegance which makes the building pleasing to the eye and a comfortable place to work in.

Even the reflective structural glazing conveys a sense of elegance, with its tinted or partially frosted glass creating multiple reflections and mirror-like effects.

Independently of its administrative functions, the new Thiais Bus Center is intended to represent a miniature version of the surrounding environment. The openings are decorated, on the outside, in four different colors (blue, green, yellow and orange), contrasting sharply with the gray concrete. This is no decorative fancy but rather a deliberate decision to use minimalist polychrome which has a strong impact and again stems from the desire for symbolic symbiosis. These colors have been carefully chosen and are a physical reproduction of the equally loud colors displayed on the shop signs and billboard in the nearby shopping district : "We have reused the primary, rather basic colors found in the surrounding area," said the architects.

This remarkable building is sure to elicit two responses. Firstly it catches the eye, its high architectural quality and bombastic appearance naturally arousing curiosity. Secondly, it generates discussion. Yet this new building is far from an example of radical autonomy .

This building is neither provocative nor out of touch with reality. Nor does it bow down to "poor quality" urbanity- a common characteristic of the neighbouring buildings. ECDM’s building is both divergent and convergent. It forms part of the local area, while at the same time adding something to it.

Despite the fact that Thiais’ unusual new Bus Center building is set in an environment filled with ultra-funcional, low-cost buildings with very little architectural symbolism, it is not provocative or defiant. Its cube-like form calls to mind the warehouse-type outlets in the nearby shopping district. Its low height is similar to the horizontal buildings in the surrounding area. On the top of the building, the Ductal façade rises skyward, ensuring visual continuity between the surronding area and the buiding itself, enchancing rather than diminishing this extremely graphic attempt at insertion. The building is set firmly in context and gives priority to functionality of use.

Above all else, Emmanuel Combarel and Dominique Marrec have designed the building specifically for purpose as the well thought-out interior design testifies. The Thiais RATP Bus Center is, nonetheless, a quite definite architectural gesture or signature. Everything about this building is distinctive.

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Posted by Rose Etherington

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