BIG to design Museum of the Human Body in Montpellier, France

BIG is having a good week, now with another competition win to design the Museum of the Human Body in Montpellier, France.

The jury — led by City Mayor Ms Hélène Mandroux — selected BIG out of five international shortlisted teams. BIG collaborated on the design with A+Architecture + Egis + Base + L'Echo + Celsius Environnement + CCVH.

The 7,800m2 museum in Parc Marianne will give new artistic, scientific, and social perspectives on the human body through cultural activities, interactive exhibitions, performances, workshops, and other public programs. Construction is set to start in 2016, and the museum will open to the public in 2018.

Check out images of the winning proposal below.

From BIG's competition announcement:

"The Museum of the Human Body, which will be part of the newly developed area Parc Marianne, is rooted in the humanist and medical tradition of Montpellier and its world renowned medical school, which dates back to the 10th century."

"The 7,800 m² (ca. 84,000 sqf) museum is conceived as a confluence of the park and the city – nature and architecture – bookending the Charpak Park along with the Montpellier city hall. The building’s program consists of eight major spaces on one level, organically shaped and lifted to form an underlying continuous space. Multiple interfaces between all functions create views to the park, access to daylight, and optimizing internal connections."

"‘Like the mixture of two incompatible substances – oil and vinegar – the urban pavement and the parks turf flow together in a mutual embrace forming terraced pockets overlooking the park and elevating islands of nature above the city. A series of seemingly singular pavilions that weave together to form a unified institution – like individual fingers united together in a mutual grip’, explains Bjarke Ingels."

"The museum’s roof functions as an ergonomic garden – a dynamic landscape of vegetal and mineral surfaces that allow the park’s visitors to explore and express their bodies in various ways – from contemplation to the performance – from relaxing to exercising – from the soothing to the challenging."

"The façades of the Museum of the Human Body are transparent, maximizing the visual and physical connection to the surroundings. On the sinuous façade that oscillates between facing North and South, East and West, the optimum louver orientation varies constantly, protecting sunlight, while also resembling the patterns of a human fingerprint – both unique and universal in nature."

PROJECT DATA

Name: Cité du Corps Humain (Museum of the Human Body)
Code: HUM
Date: 11/20/2013
Program: Culture
Status: In Progress
Size in m2: 7800
Project type: Competition
Client: Ville de Montpellier
Collaborators: A+ Architecture, Egis Bâtiment Méditerranée, Base, L'Echo, Celsius Environnement, Cabinet Conseil Vincent Hedont
Location: Montpellier, France (43.5645, 3.87817)
Awards: 1st prize

PROJECT TEAM

Partner in Charge: Bjarke Ingels, Andreas Klok Pedersen
Project Leader: Gabrielle Nadeau
Project Manager: Jakob Sand
Team: Birk Daugaard, Chris Falla, Alexandra Lukianova, Oscar Abrahamsson, Katerina Joannides, Aleksander Wadas, Marie Lançon, Danae Charatsi, Alexander Ejsing

All images courtesy of BIG unless otherwise credited.

Click the thumbnails below to see project diagrams and models.