LISAA designers imagine the Montparnasse Tower of tomorrow
The winner of the international competition for the renovation of the Montparnasse Tower has finally been revealed! As part of their final examinations, Interior Architecture and Design students at LISAA Paris also worked on this ambitious project in order to imagine the tower of tomorrow.
BRINGING THE MAGIC BACK TO MONTPARNASSE
Alongside the international competition won by the Nouvelle AOM firm, students in Interior Architecture & Design at LISAA Paris worked on the theme of "Bringing the magic back to Montparnasse" for their final examinations of 2017.
Each student had to devise and propose an individual project: to rethink the architecture of tower’s façade and increase the centre’s attractiveness, by proposing solutions that are coherent with the evolution of our society. To respond to this, they created new layouts by rethinking existing spaces or by designing new spaces.
The final projects revolve around one of the four suggested approaches:
- A “green project”, bringing plant life to the tower by combining aesthetic, ecological and functional solutions.
- A project focusing on the external/internal interfaces in order to improve the quality of the façade’s architecture
- A partial or total revision of the tower’s programming to give it the appropriate structuring for the neighbourhood
- An “urban project” around the neighbourhood and the base of the tower with an extension of the operations into the tower itself
Students enthusiastically broached the project and their proposals sometimes even, without knowing, came close to those of the competition’s winners.
Nicolas Vernoux-Thélot, chartered architect and teacher at the Interior Architecture & Design School at LISAA Paris
AN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION FOR AN AMBITIOUS PROJECT
The ambitious renovation project Montparnasse Tomorrow aims to give this iconic building a new, strong and innovative identity, whilst integrating the issues of usage, comfort and energy performance. Built in the 1970s, the 52-storey tower of a height of 210 metres no longer fulfils current norms or needs.
Beyond the renovation of the building, the challenges of this construction site lie in giving the group of buildings an attractiveness and a strategic place in the heart of Paris and for this project to be part of a larger vision aiming to revive the Montparnasse neighbourhood.
Two architectural firms, Studio Gang and Nouvelle AOM, were finalists in the international competition launched in June 2016. Work is planned to start in 2019 and to be completed in 2023.
