Le Cabanon / Atelier Seraji + Atela Architectes

Architects: Atelier Seraji + Atela Architectes
Location: Sophia Antipolis, France
Completion: 2011
Consultants: SETOR (engineering), Peutz ET Associés (acoustics), Anne-Lise Leymarie (environmental engineering)
Client: Nice–Côte d’Azur Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Size: 2,000 sqm
Budget: 3.8 million euros
Photographs: Stephan Lucas

An idyllic site in front of a horrifyingly uninteresting building. In terms of scale, the project is insignificant. And yet, we win the competition at Sophia Antipolis. An exercise of absolute banality carried to the limits of architectural elegance and pleasure. Le Corbusier’s “cabanon” gave him all that he needed to think and reflect on when he left the city… This small student centre gives us the possibility to have fun with architecture as well as recognise how trivial our profession can be. It is an elegant volume that houses a cafeteria and a library/reading room with all its ancillary functions. The cafeteria opens out towards the forest of pine trees that stand in front of the site; and the library is placed on the upper level. It is the superimposition of two primordial acts which are, for students, eating and reading, preferably not in the same place and not at the same time.