Students, professors, staff, and visitors will be able to access the new center from two main entrances &#; at the ground floor and the first floor &#; located at different elevations due to the north-south slope of the campus. Students entering through the south side will be met by a cafe and the open auditorium’s grand staircase that leads up towards the atrium. The full-height atrium with open spaces invite collaborative activity &#; embodying both the architectural and educational approach of the center.

A continuous public path stretches from street level to the penthouses and allows people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top, moving alongside townhouses with gardens, winding through the urban perimeter block. Two sloping green roofs totaling , m are strategically placed to reduce the urban heat island effect as well as providing the visual identity to the project and tying it back to the adjacent farmlands towards the south.

The new multidisciplinary research center, Paris PARC, located between Jean Nouvel’s Institut du Monde Arabe and the open green park of Sorbonne&#;s Jussieu Campus will become a significant addition to the campus, strengthening the international appeal and openness of the leading French University for Science and Medicine. The facility will bring together academic scholars and the business community, while re-connecting the university physically and visually with the city of Paris.

The project includes the restoration of the Daily Express Building grade II* listed building. The headquarters of the newspaper &#; once the epicenter of the newspaper industry and one of London’s finest Art Deco interiors &#; will for the first time in its history be given a stand-alone status. The project will provide inclusive public access to the original art deco lobby, as well as the exterior roof amenities that include views of the surrounding city.

The first stages of project development at BIG always involve a careful study of the site and the programmatic requirements. In the case of the Escher Tower, the site was an orthogonal intersection of an east-west highway and a north-south subway line, populated by a department store and a medical business. The program was identical hotel rooms with the only interesting activities to be placed in a single floor at the ground.