OFFICE BUILDINGS
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NAMUR, BELGIUM
Architects: URBAN architectes
Area : 105 m²
Year : 2020
Photographs :Maxime Vermeulen
Manufacturers : Nemetschek
Realized by URBAN architects in the center of Namur (Belgium), the “Yellow Submarine” pavilion completes a larger rehabilitation program of a former mansion into a complex of offices and housing. The pavilion works independently: it includes an independent access system, several offices, a waiting room, a multifunctional space, and an independent toilet block. “Yellow Submarine” offers its users an atypical workplace within a bucolic space, in total disconnection from the urban environment that adjoins it.
Located in the heart of a residential block, 25m from the main street and visible only from an old carriageway, the project arouses curiosity by its singularity and creates a furtive visual appeal for passers-by. Like a contemporary sculpture set in its natural setting, this non-conformist pavilion expresses its eccentricity through its curves and intense color.
The “Yellow” is essentially defined through the deep contrast and abstraction it generates in its relationship with its context. The dissonance sought in this proposal, which expresses itself almost without compromise, offers the site and its users a unique experience accentuated by the frontal relationship between the pavilion’s yellow metal cladding and the plantings that face it.
The garden space can be read as the negative of the pavilion plan. It offers the garden space more intimate proportions and its curvilinear contraction allows it to animate and privatize the rear area reserved for the users of the project. The project’s construction system contrast with its atypical appearance: It is based on traditional concrete block masonry insulated from the outside. The facade cladding, made of lacquered aluminum sheets with a mineral core, was pre-cut and pre-bent in the workshop and then fixed directly on site.
