The building is organised around six spaces: the garden, four external courtyards and the ‘Rue intérieure’ which connects the other spaces and the entrance to form a 'social heart' for the institute. Between the compressed western half of the building and the open garden spans a library ‘bridge’ which connects the community of scholars, professors, and staff with a series of interlocking halls, reading rooms and loggias spaces. The outer form of the block is held by the 800 offices with a fine-grained structure, sitting above the larger laboratories and amphitheatres below which have greater spans. At ground level the structure is as open as possible so the public spaces and garden can flow together to form a continuous civic landscape.

This building sits within a master plan for a plateau near Paris which proposes streets, squares and boulevards, poetically integrating landscape, learning and industry. We explored the legacy of lawns, quadrangles and cloisters in the great tradition of educa-tional institutions. In the making of a 21st Century university building we were inspired by a close study of historical precedent such as the Palais Royale, Paris and Trinity College, Dublin and the Ospedale Maggiore, Milan and the ancient Greek Stoa of Attalos.