Light + Design:

Veil of light

When architect Jakob + MacFarlane won the competition to renovate and extend the FRAC centre in Orléans to create a new art and cultural centre for young creators, it opted for a strong physical presence with the introduction of an urban signal. Working with the artist group Electronic Shadow, the team came up with a project that not only renovated the existing building but also introduced a prefabricated tubular structure to the former military site to act as a marker.

Called Turbulences, it is based on the parametric deformation and the extrusion of the grids of the existing buildings. A tubular structure supports exterior covering panels of aluminum, either solid or perforated, and interior panels of wood... The lower parts are clad with prefabricated concrete panels, providing continuity with the courtyard.

The part of the Turbulences giving onto the Boulevard is covered with several hundred diodes, creating a “media façade”. Using the construction lines of the building, the points of light become denser, passing from point to line, line to surface, surface to volume, and volume to image