IPEFAM (Institut Polytechnique d’Etudes Franco-Allemandes et de Management), Metz

Ipefam is the result of the merger between two teaching units, the Institut Polytechnique d’Études Franco-Allemandes and a Management School. In this project it is the overhang, through the positive and negative spaces that it makes, that embeds the building into the surrounding context. An overhang with a span of some ten metres has thus been created. This system contains a heterogeneous structure comprising one steel part (projecting volume) and a concrete part (stairwells + amphitheatres) playing the role of counterweight. The heterogeneous nature of the constructive structure is not expressed visually so as to give the impression of a continuous volume, sliding over another volume. The novel way the empty spaces are defined, their tense sequencing, with the gaze projected outwards, suggest the machine-like aspect of the building while the contrasting colours of the walls give the surrounding nature its artificiality. (Extract from the text by Architecture critique Joseph Abram on IPEFAM)