Site : Marseille, France
Client : SOGIMA
Program : Conception of an office building
Size : 4 200 m2
Cost : 7 M €
Date : 2006

Situated in the urban restructuration project Euroméditérranée in Marseille, the project Bon Pasteur plays a fundamental role in the articulation of the heterogeneous urban fabrics surrounding the site. Funded by the city of Marseille and Sogima, this project faces the Porte d’Aix, an important historical landmark of Marseille. The challenge was to propose a building which in its scale, program, and siting would participate in the redefinition of the public spaces around the Porte d’Aix. The obstacles were numerous: the presence of a metro station on the property, the pronounced topography of the site, and the heterogeneity of the urban tissue surrounding the site. The building is an urban resolution; the shape of the building is fabricated by the constraints of the neighboring buildings. As a mineral emergence which creates both a visual and pedestrian continuity with the street Bon Pasteur, the building does not reveal its use or program readily but rather invites exploration.