This Building's Pixelated Facade Regulates Its Temperature

The initial designs have a foreboding kind of beauty, an atmospheric choice that was intentional says Snøhetta.
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A rendering of what *Le Monde'*s new headquarters will look like in 2017.Snøhetta

Le Monde, Paris' famed newspaper, is getting a new home. A big, glassy, serious building of a home, courtesy of Snøhetta, the Oslo/NYC architecture firm responsible for SF MoMA’s icy makeover.

The renderings show an arching, horizontal building with a striking glass facade clad in what Snøhetta describes as a “pixelated matrix of glass with varying degrees of transparency, translucency, and opacity.” This will help regulate temperature and lighting levels. It’s also mean to create a striking visual effect that changes depending on your distance to the building. The closer you are, the more detail you see, “like headlines and detailed content in a news story,” the designers say.

The initial designs have a foreboding kind of beauty, an atmospheric choice that was intentional says Snøhetta. “In a certain way there have always been dark clouds hanging over media houses,” says Kjetil Thorsen, Co-Founder of Snøhetta. Journalism has always been a turbulent trade, especially so today with the perpetual strain for readers' eyeballs, crumbling business models and recent violent attacks on journalists. Despite the metaphorical (and literal) clouds, Larsen is quick to say Le Monde is an optimistic building.

The public courtyard under the bridge.

Snøhetta
Funky Form, With Function

The building is defined by a bridge-like span that has a couple purposes. Conceptually, this arch is meant to represent the connection between the people who make the media and those who consume it. Practically, this bridge is a structural necessity. The plot of land Snøhetta is building on sits just above a Metro station (Paris’ underground train), which means much of the site lacked the bedrock necessary for a foundation. Snøhetta was told the headquarters would have to be split into two buildings. That wasn’t going to fly. Instead, Snøhetta began designing the building’s shape from a solid form, subtracting spherical volumes to carve out the bridge you see in the renderings.

The negative space was an opportunity for the architects to build a public plaza where people can meet friends or catch up on the news. A plaza might seem like a simple way to tout “openness,” but it’s an interesting idea, especially when you consider the closed-off architecture of other major news operations. In New York City, for example, you’ll have difficulty finding a publishing institution that encourages intentional interaction of journalists and the public through the built space.

Similar to its Oslo Opera House, in which an angled ramp allows visitors to effectively walk on top of the building, Le Monde's building is designed specifically to engage the public. The plaza is a clear example, but the initial plans call for an auditorium and visitor’s center, as well. In light of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, it could be read as cavalier. And indeed the knee jerk reaction would to build a barrier to keep out potential threats. But, argues Thorsen, the exact opposite is needed. "You can create distance by creating a fortress or you can create closeness by inviting people in,” he says. “Now more than ever we need something that represents exactly where we stand.”