Maissa Architectures Portfolio_I_2023

PORTFOLIO

E3MG CAMPUS: The Overhanging “Lucarne” above the Building Entrance. Interior View.

jean pierre maissa maissa architectures llc

Int’l Assoc. AIA jp@maissa.art

MAISSA ARCHITECTURES

JEAN PIERRE MAISSA

M.Arch: Faculty of Architecture, Genoa, Italy

PhD: Urban Planning, Milan Polytechnic, Italy

Int’l. Assoc. AIA

Architect, planner, educated, and licensed in Italy since 1999, Jean Pierre Maissa has a history of successful projects ranging from Urban design and remodeling, university campuses, office buildings, leisure and hospitality, and housing. He has Interned and collaborated in Paris, Milan, Brussels, and Genoa.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Ramses SQ CAIRO, Egypt 10

Decameron Hotel 16

Mouila University Campus 18

Mr. Maissa has championed an array of international collaboration in projects in France, Italy, Egypt, Gabon, and neighboring African countries. He thrives when complexity, out-of-box thinking within an extreme outreach for pragmatism, and urgent implementation, are at play. He possesses a detailed-oriented mindset and organizational skills that have led him- while settled in Africa (Gabon)- to piloting a small team of up to ten people, for over fifteen years, and posing it as a stemming point for larger international collaborations. From there he oversees the concept, the development, and the implementation of every project, each one within a unique and ever-changing contextual framework that somehow mirrors the often diluted architect/client relation or particular institutional settings of regulations or budgetary, timeframe, or building conditions. The project of the E3MG campus – a mining and metallurgy engineering school- in Moanda, Gabon, delivered in 2017, has been recognized internationally, as a finalist for the 2019 World Architectural Festival, with publications in Achdaily, Dom Publisher’s monography of Subsaharan African Architecture, and Dezeen.

Mr Maissa is an AIA International Associate Member, Queens, NY, Chapter.

Comilog Headquarters 28

NET Zero: French Embassy 30 +1

jean

The E3MG Campus 04

CAMPUS: MINING ENGINEERING SCHOOL

MOANDA GABON

CLIENT: ERAMET COMILOG, FRANCE

COMPLETED 2017

WORLD ARCHITECTURE FESTIVAL FINALIST, AMSTERDAM, 2019

VIDEO PRESENTATION LINK: HTTPS://VIMEO.COM/462177817

The Ecole des Mines et de la Métallurgie de Moanda (E3MG), is backed by the Nancy University (France). Beyond educating specialized engineers, The E3MG will also be doing research, paving the way to help Gabon transitions its mining industry from a mere extraction of raw minerals towards a more performative transformation and manufacture of high valued metals.

The Campus spans across a thirty-hectare wide area, extracted from the forest and surrounded by mountains and mining valleys. The compound comprises thirteen buildings and facilities housing sixty students and a dozen personnel and teachers, such as student dormitories, staff, and teacher’s houses, a restaurant, a foyer, sports and recreative area, a power generator plant, clean water and fire water storage.

The whole master plan is dominated by the main building, which hosts both teaching and management activities—also, a library, an auditorium, practice laboratories, and a urgent medical care unit.

LECTURE HALL

THE LIBRARY. CLOSE-UP INTERNAL VIEW OF THE OVERHANGING “LUCARNE”. FACADE DETAIL The depth of the mullions fins is meant to provide shade and depht to glazed facade

RENDERING OF THE AERIAL VIEW

Due to this concentration of diverse functions, we have designed an H-shaped two-level building where two slightly parallel volumes relate to each other through a bridge-like light volume. The lower level is made of a concrete podium, which partly digs into the ground, wrapped with anodized aluminum sheets that protect the concrete from humidity and heat. Underground are located mechanical and IT rooms and a medical unit, accessible through an external slope ramp in the inward courtyard side and a vehicular one, from the exterior.

A 150-seat auditorium occupies the ground floor’s left-wing, on the entrance side, while the connecting and right wings host teaching-laboratories, workshops and storages.

The upper level, on the other hand, is structured by steel portals of I beams and angles supporting the wrapping around curtain wall façade and the metallic roof. The H configuration enable spatial distinct quarters supporting the heterogeneity of the programme, while positioning each quarter within reach one from one another. Spatial diversity and unity. Moreover, both circulations and standing units are constantly visually exposed to the surroundings, due to the continuous and transparent perimetral ribbon of sun-reducing glazing façade. Also, spaces can feel apart on their own, in isolation, when specific needs must be met, or getting reached out, as they are interrelated throughout a continuous physical promenade, along the H perimeters.

The concrete podium occupies most of the ground floor except the left-wing, in which the auditorium is enclosed in a recessed curtain wall, shaded by the overlapping first-floor slab. The lobby-as ninety percent of the building interior- is naturally illuminated, visually immersed to the surrounding nature as all the non-specialized rooms in the upper level. The rest of the ground-floor hosts teaching laboratories for Chemistry (Metallurgy) and Geosciences and workshops, for minerals studies.

The upper façade constitutes a continue glazed ribbon all along the H branches, allowing natural illumination and enabling “an immersive experience of endless views to the surrounding nature” from each room and within the corridors. The internal distribution takes place from the inward periphery of the H, stemming a long and contemplative promenade, totally exposed to nature and the light. The AGC Glass STOPSOL bronze laminated glass panels randomly alternated with acrylic paint stainless steel panels, create patterns that echo local cultures while helping the building envelope to blend to nature.

Its massiveness is, therefore, comes ethereal, ever changing, depending of the point of observation, the time of the day and the intensity of daylight at any given moment. Also, the mood of the of the reflexive patterns portrays different figures, function to daylight’s course. The STOPSOL glass has sun reducing properties and is layered, from the exterior side to the interior, with a 6 millimeters bronze glass panel, a 0.38-millimeter PVB membrane, another 6 millimeters clear glass panel and a 2 millimeters one, on the interior side.

Sun reducing properties are reinforced by the protruding mullions, those 450 millimeters extra external fins, whose noses allow further shading, acting like “brise-soleil.” Interiors partition walls are made from acoustic 13mm aluminum studded plasterboards, which would enable future adaptability.

Because rainfall rates in the region are among the highest globally, the roof geometry is thought of as a multifaceted set of umbrellas, with different heights and two low points coinciding with internals water pipes. Reducing rainwater collectors of the 1300sqm roof to only two points eases water harvesting for future usages such as watering and landscaping during the dry season.

PROPOSED STAFF HOUSING

THE PROPOSED SCHOOL BOARD ROOM AS “A ROOM IN THE JUNGLE”

DETAIL OF THE AMPHITHEATER BUILDING, THE PROTECTED PATHWAYS, AND THE LANDSCAPE

RAMSES SQ. CAIRO, EGYPT

INTENATIONAL COMPETITION, 2009 MAISSA ARCHITECTURES/ BKVV JEAN PIERRE MAISSA, LEAD DESIGNER YOUTUBE VIDEO PRESENTATION LINK: HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/X0UBDNJCXFU

Appeasing, reinvigorating, and uplifting a historic, vital, yet ungoverned and bustling city center

This project is a proposal submitted for an international competition launched by the Cairo Directorate to revitalize, remodel and solve transportation on one of the busiest intersections in Cairo. Host of several landmarks and a former location for the statue of the pharaoh Ramses, the area is also of great importance in the city intermodal traffic exchange. The Barb El Hadid train station, the El Fateh Mosque, the Lymoun tram station, and the Everest hotel are among the heritage buildings present in the area. Because traffic congestion was the utmost and troublesome issue, in a place where flyovers, in-ground roads, pedestrians crossings all display a hectic scene, this proposal took the task of rethinking the traffic on a larger scale, as a starting point for reimagining Ramses Square as a green beacon of urbanity, and its burstling life, toward a sustainable urban future.

Thus, the project proposed completing the interrupted outer highway system as a city ring on a larger urban scale, integrating a new innercity road ring with direct connections to the city center.

Another planning feature was introducing an electrical surface public transport, a metro line to complete the underground one, for public transportation. The overall goal was to fluidify the flow of modal transportation means, and to bring quietness, greenery, order, and a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood, which will act as a stepping stone for the upheaval of a new urban vision, greener, healthier, and sustainable: The new Cairo’s Ramses Park.

The project details the new traffic strategy with precision, from the pedestrianization of the area, up to the inter-urban highways connectivity.

A new Intermodal transportation system enhances the feasibility of a greener city center, with projected future developments and strategy that envisions new typologies of buildings and trans-

forms the existent through news guidelines for future construction.

The driving theme for the project beyond a better traffic system for central Cairo is building an urban Park, Ramses Park.

Ramses Park becomes the green heart of Cairo. A sustainable city needs green. Located at the base of the Nile delta, Cairo has good soil for building parks. Stemming from the existing landmarks around a scenery where the old train station takes a central place, we replace part of the existing highway flyover, redirecting the traffic underground. At the same time, the remaining elevated road turned into an elevated promenade into the Park.

The main feature highlighting the Park on an urban scale will be a 70-meters high panorama tower. This tower will add to the existing urban landmarks and became an attraction while permitting higher sightseeing to the urban horizon, up to the pyramids.

The ensemble of buildings and functions has a harmonious look and feel. The Park itself has different zones; close to the Ramses Station, it is a city park with elegant paving; further, more to the east, it becomes more natural; the grass and trees take over the role of the paving. At the rear of the Railway station, there will be a drop-off and pickup for travelers. Cars, taxis, and minibusses will have multi-level parking.

An organized flow of circulations will separate Pedestrians, cars, trucks, and public transportation on elevated platforms and dedicated flyovers. On top of this junction, there is the Ramses Roundabout building. An impressive building, a hub for commercial and other businesses taking advantage of the intermodality of this place and the intensive motorized and foot traffic. A place of intensive exchange, an urban heart bit.

The Ramses Park landscape design stems from patterned hardscape and soft scape, forming randomized clusters of planted areas. Each one contains grass fields, planting borders, paving, tree

groups, or water ponds. These clusters vary in dimensions, height, and topography. They have, at some places, even a built program.

The pattern is composed of a mix of paved and grassy elements. The former is predominant around the station; alternatively, the farther eastbound, the latter becomes dominant, up to a much greener planted Park.

The landscape design concept within the Park is inspired by the ‘Cairo tile,’ in combination with a collection of water elements enclosed within dense tree planting.

Forming parts of the pattern with green, water, and paving formal and informal routes will be created. When walking through the Park, one can choose one path. Across fields of greenery and cluster with water basins, there are formally defined pathways that emerge. The difference between the hardscape pattern filings and softscape ones is natural stone paving. The water elements function as an irrigation basin and have plants like water lilies (Nymphaea lotus L.) and Papyrus cane (Cyperus papyrus L.). The dense parts contain a variety of smaller tree species like fig (Ficus carica L.), mulberry fig (Ficus sycomorus L.), mulberry (Morus nigra), almond (Prunis Dulcis), and olive (Olea europaea L.).

Fruit trees cover the water edge in shadow, enclosing the water elements to prevent the water surface from vaporizing in the open heat of the sun, and meanwhile, form an interpretation of the classic oasis. They become a habitat for a variety of birds. The planting is based on endemic trees and plants species.

Such as the Papyrus and Nymphaea have a long cultural history. The cohesion of enclosed water and a lively combination of trees, is contrasted by the large open spaces of hardscape with large grass fields. These open spaces have areas with canopy in it.

Showcasing the layered nodal transport exchange

THE ROUNDABOUT BUILDING

Roundabouts connect the roads on levels: the main Roundabout on the middle level and top and bottom levels will be for traffic traveling through.

Connecting the ring roads

There are 6 Motorways which will connect the Greater Cairo ring 06 and the Central Cairo ring City Motorway:

-01 North, connection towards Benha, Tanta, Alexandria(Nile delta)

-04 North-east, connection towards Nafishah, Ismailia

-03 East, connection towards Suez

-03 South, connection towards Hulwan (Nile rightbank)

-02 South-West, connection towards Al Hawamidiyah (Nile left bank)

-’26 july axis, main road Northwestern direction

Despite the double Ring road system and motorway connections most pressure will come from the Northeastern direction (01, 04 and 03). Next to the Motorways a vital part for traffic flow will be:

-Northbound: Shoebra (Ma inroad 01)

-Northbound: Port Said/BorSaeiad (Mainroad 41)

-Northeastbound: El Oroba/El Mataar (connection to Airport)

-Southwestbound: Al Haram (Mainroad 10)

Adding structure and orientation in Cairo’s city-center

By building the ring road North of the Train Station the result will be a direct decrease in congestion, good access to the Train Station is guaranteed. Also the Northeast-Southwest traffic flow (now via Korby 6 October and Ramses) via different infrastructure will be developed. The current trafficflow on the Shoebra (main road 01) and Port Said/BorSaeiad (main road 41) will in the future be re-routed to the new Motorway 01. The traffic flow from the 01 will be be connected and re-routed via the Central Cairo ring from the Shoebra (01) and the Port Said/Borsaeiad (41) to the city-center. It is also the intention to use the Central Cairo ring to travel to the Southern part of the city-center.

Main roads in the City-center

In Cairo’s center certain roads will be the carriers of the traffic network. These roads will need to be recognizable. By use of street furniture, road profile, tarmac, vegetation and signposted junctions. Especially green has an important role in this which relates to the design of Ramses Park. Green connects the city to the park. These will be accented to parts of the city which will increase orientation within the city. Think of new built Houses and high rise apartments and office buildings, etc.

The old business district will be bordered by green belts as sort of Green ring within the Cairo Central ring. Which will automatically connect to Ramses Park. The closer one gets to the Ramses Park area the higher the density of vegetation in the streets. This in itself gives extra orientation. The Ramses Park will be continued in southwestern direction by means of boulevard with vegetation. The Korby 6 Octobre will accommodate one-way traffic traveling to the southwest, while the Ramses will accommodate one-way traffic towards the northeast.

The green belts will slowly flow towards the south via the Meret Basha. And then easterly via El Tehrier and Abd El Azeaz. And then onwards towards El Bostah and Kolot Beak bending north to the Station.

The green center ring will have 5 orientation points:

- Southwest point from Ramses Park / Train Station

- A new oval roundabout (acting as a junction between Korby 6 plotOctober and Ramses with Nafak Elsabtia)

- Square Attaba

- Square El Tahrir

- Square Korby El Azhar

These orientation and junctions will be supported by the cities basic layout, whereupon orientation in and through the city of Cairo will increased.

Re-valuing and new infrastructure

The concept envisions adaptation and modification to the traffic network. The Ramses from the station to the Korby Ghamra will re-valued. Of course the stretching of the El Zaher to the Oraby is vital. In doing so this will create an East-West connection to the northern part of the city-center. This is necessary to relieve the Ramses. It is also vital to 3stretch the 26 July east through the El Gaish. This will also improve the East-West connection to the northern part of the city-center.

There is also basis for extra connections between the city and the Central Cairo ring, with emphasis on the southern part of the Central Cairo ring. Stretching the Kobri El Azhar/ Nafak Elazhar/Gawhar El Qaaed, in order to create a main road between the Salah Salem and the Central Cairo ring. The same goes for stretching the route from Kamel Sedky/El Benhawe/Edaret El Meroor to the Central Cairo ring; this will make the El Malkik Mansour Osman more useful.

Introduction Metrobus

The current Public Transport system consists of metrolines and 3th currently under construction:

- One westerly line: middle/north - station/centre - south/ west

- One easterly line : north/east - station/centre - south

The lines cross each other twice in the centre: at Mubarak (station) and at Sadat (Square El Tahrir)

We introduce the electric metrobus. This is Bus system with its own infrastructure (bus lanes, stops and recharge points).

The advantage to this is that within our vision of the traffic system this public transport system will be realized relatively easy in the existing city grid. The metrobus system can be built in phases: starting of course in the city-center and gradually building towards the edges of the city.

6 Lines are planned:

- Yellow: middle north - station - southwest

-

Green: middle north - station - south

- Red : northeast - centre east - south

- Purple : east - centre - west

- Blue : northwest - station - east

- Brown : northwest - centre west - southeast

These lines go to and across the Central Cairo ring. Near the junctions you will find transfer facilities. Motorists can park their cars here and continue via Metrobus. There will be transfer locations planned on the western side of the ring

3 to the southern side of the ring and 1 to the eastern side of the ring. On north side there could be a transfer near the Motorway junctions. This could however if no other possibility be placed on the Greater Cairo ring aswell.

There will be different connection points for Metrobus and Metro. The most important will be Mubarak Station and El Tahrir Square (metrostation Sadat).

The development of Ramses Park is the stepping stone for the developments of the surrounding area. Development starts at the edges of the park from were the future developments will expand into the city. Having this green heart in Central Cairo it will be an attractive place to live and work. Buildings or even blocks can be renovated, restored or replaced depending on their quality. If owners want to develop their buildings public and private green should be incorporated in the designs.

Next to the railway station we create one of the important traffic junctions. Pedestrians, cars, trucks and public transportation can all find their own place here. On top of the Ramses junction we build the Ramses Roundabout building. An impressive building where creative, commercial and other businesses will be housed. E.g. an international airline can have their office here. Just like the traffic junction, this will be a place of intensive exchange.

On the West side of the park the business district expands with the Ramses Roundabout building as a starting point. On the other sides of the park it focusses on combined functions and apartment areas.

The models shows the possible developments from 2010 to 2050. Preferably there will be governmental guidance to stimulate building owners to renovate, restore and rebuild their properties. The whole area should become more green, just like the park. Here the government can stimulate as well. Over time the development can be accelerated when rents based on the old rental law end. This provides interesting economical opportunities for owners and government.

THE DECAMERON HOTEL

LIBREVILLE WATERFRONT 2011 MAISSA ARCHITECTURES JEAN PIERRE MAISSA

A golden Sail in an equatorial shoreline, at dusk

This project is a preliminary design to transform an existing resort htel of 120 rooms, formerly Accor Novotel, into a 150 rooms Decameron Hotel.

The project location is along the shoreline of the Estuary of Libreville, the capital city of Gabon. Facing west is the Atlantic ocean, where the beach narrows and tide’s currents dig with strength into the coastline, shrinking it through erosion. The blueprint of Marcello D’Olivo plan, the modernist Italian architect, is survived by the almost thirty kilometers waterfront boulevard facing west to the ocean that constitutes the dorsal spine of the city’s urbanization. All prestigious built landmarks align along this line, and the former Accor Novotel is one of them.

The scenery is famously home for striking dusk views framing orange sun rays through skinny silhouettes of tall palm trees against the backdrop of a burning golden horizon with an oversize sun sitting atop it.

The brief asked for a new façade, a slight increment of the resort capacity, improved beach design where outdoor amenities had to take advantage of beach fruition and the ocean view, and unleash the entended resort-like layback “dream life”.

The proposal features a one-story elongated carved podium parallel to the boulevard, showcasing a street-faced commercial row of boutiques inviting passerby through in a way that allows a more transitional gradual welcome to the resort. This strip ends with an entrance canopy that marks the actual formal entrance to the hotel from a distance. It’s a subtle strategy that permits the whole intervention to “give back” a certain level of urbanity to the city, otherwise absent to the brief. Perpendicular to the street and the low podium, an L shaped multistory double volume is the main feature of the composition. It’s where the residential part of the hotel takes place. It comprehends the 150 rooms requested. This central volume has an outer second skin made of an ondulated stainless steel mesh, with a variable offset of 60cm to 2m from the main façade. The mesh acts as a sunshade reducer feature and has a rain forest landscape imprinted, only visible from afar, like a giant tapestry.

By the ocean, the beach is landscaped and widened. A pier for small boat decking completes the new coastline, reinforced by the new unique landscape of tide breakers boulders filled with sand.

The overall result is the perfect backdrop from a layback resort-style world of amenities, comprising a pool, open bars, outdoor and indoor restaurants, beach life, etc.

The golden tapestry wrapped volume adds up to the chain of seaside landmarks along the waterfront boulevard. More importantly, it symbolizes, at its best, the memorialized mood of a hot coastal equatorial sunset, visited by the long-sought breeze and a giant golden sail, with the sun atop the burning horizon. Echoes of pirated lands, when sailors vessels once appeared and vanished with locals treasure onboard, in dusks filled with melancholy.

THE HOTEL ENTRANCE FACADE

Showcasing the new strip along the waterfront boulevard with boutiques

POOLSIDE AMENITIES, BARS AND RESTAURANT BY THE BEACH

ROOFTOP LOUNGE AND AMENITIES, NIGHTS CLUB

TAMPAK BAWAH SEKALI

FRONT ACCES, DRIVEWAY, PARKING AND GARDEN

MOUILA UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

“Scattered Concrete porous Volumes in The Rainforest, stemmed from local termite mounds.”

The campus design mimics scattered minerals volumes within a layered savannah spot within the equatorial forest that borders the banks of the Ngounie rivers, in the inland of Gabon. Orange tinted concrete shapes echoe the texture of local clay constitute the dominant image. Faculty buildings, like square boxes, hover above the ground and organize a seminal urban grid with a hierarchy of paths, axes, and organic trails, along terrain contour lines. Faculty buildings are aligned along a front road to be built, linking the new settlement with the city of Mouila, one and a half kilometers away, forming a front façade originated by the entrance canopy. The Equatorial rainforest is an intertwined display of layers and grades of the diverse nuances of greenness that go from yellow-orange to blueish, depicting the diversity of its composition and the complexity of its biodiversity. Its morphology presents an assortment of fauna that go from emergent tree species up to sixty meters to the main canopy stories, the under-canopy, the shrubs, and the herb on the forest floor, hardly hit by sun rays, as analyzed by P.W. Richards (1952).

Each layer is home to a complex ecosystem, with proper spe-

cies. This scenery is often interrupted by blankets of savannah, revealing an endless softly undulated open field that liberates the view and frees the sight to a surprising horizon. Many rivers, lakes, or simply pockets of constant overflows of rainfalls, are fed by the abundance of downpours at a high season. Low seasonability, excessive heat, and humidity are a big deal for any made made artifact’s viability and durability.

The savannahs are welcomed openings within the green masse of the forest. They are indeed an ideal site for settlements. A close look highlights termites mounds formations that add another habitat to its intriguing geography. Termite mounds are well known for their sophisticated thermoregulatory functioning.

The equatorial rainforest covers nearly eighty percent of three hundred thousand square kilometers of the Gabonese territory. Poor accessibility to the countryside renders logistics difficult. Roadbeds can quickly turn into muddy corridors that entraps any vehicle. The city of Mouila, being four hundred kilometers away from the capital city of Libreville, is no stranger to that difficulty of access. All materials and means of carrying an effective construction site coming from Libreville. Another uphill task comes with the local power grid’s insufficiency, not capable of withstanding the energy

MOUILA, GABON 2009 MAISSA ARCHITECTURES / BKVV JEAN PIERRE MAISSA, LEAD DESIGNER

demand of the nearly thirty thousand square meters of projected campus buildings. Going sustainable, at least in terms of energy usage, was not an option for the project.

In that sense, buildings orientation follows the need for shade on opened facades exposed to the sun path. Concrete sunbreaks mitigate heat and are critical to low-tech climate control architectural expression. As per the savannah termite mounds, largely sparse in the site, porosity through thick enclosure peripheral structure (concrete) and airflow are essential to lower the humidity and prevent excessive temperatures. This process of thermoregulation present in nature has played a significant role in typifying the particular expression of the campus building’s architecture. Although there hasn’t been a complete push to a thorough mimicry of nature in outlining the conceptual approach, the final result is indeed the representation of how those principles can lead to sustainable mod

ern architecture, informed by its context.

Upon precise energy need calculation, the campus masterplan comes with three categories of buildings, based o the level of technologically enhanced climate implied. The library and the administrative pavilion, of high energy demand due to air conditioning, were conceived as high tech, the faculties as medium-tech, and the rest of the compound as low tech architecture.

A photovoltaic panel station supported by the entrance canopy and three hydropower turbines powered by the river’s natural high current has led to an es

timation of 2850 MWh/year of energy needed, of which 2000 MWh/year were producible in situ through the projected renewable means developed through the project sustainability strategy. The goal was to push that capability further

and later have the compound fully reliable on renewables, self-sustainable, and in a position to give back to the local energy grid.

The overall design features textured concrete boxes scattered in the savannah, whose formal expression patterns massiveness and porosity. Projected structures breathe and work in line with the need for interior comfort and minimize their impact on the soil and its original topography. In that sense, the project avoids defining a walkout level on the existing terrain level to prevent any grading that leads to erosions. Instead, the main buildings’ first floor is approximately +7meters above ground, sustained by a set of pilotis or structural artifacts. The goal is to allow the natural drainage to pursue its predefined path, to preserve the existing floodable basins as the current overflows of the Ngounie river and the nearby lac bleu.

Raising the first floors of buildings makes for visual continuity of the natural horizon, captures the breeze of ventilation, and naturally releases steam on interior spaces, on top of enabling the thermoregulation artifices such shades on openings, oriented sunbreaks, air-exhaust features.

The campus comprised three faculties and has the capacity of a thousand and five hundred students. Other projected facilities are dormitories, a medical center, a cafeteria, a foyer, and a guest house lodge near the Lake. Sports equipment and housing for staff and teachers were among other planned future developments.

Website: www.mouilauniversity.com

Rectorat

The roofstructure of the Auditorium is thin floorslab of 150 mm thick, which spans to a diagonal grid of beams of size 400 x 900 mm2. This beamgrid makes it possible to distribute loads in two directions. This is a more efficient way than to span in only a single way. Also at the Auditorium the vertical sunbreakers are used as columns.

The structure of the first floor is made out of reinforced concrete and supported by leaning columns placed at random. The design principle used here is to use more materials at places where it is needed, the areas close to the columns and less material where it is possible, at places far from the columns. So the floorheight changes from 650 mm at the columns to 350 mm right in between the columns. The columns are placed into the building, so the floor is cantilevering at the façade. The loads at the façade are balancing the loads at the middle of the floor.

Notes: The quality of the used concrete is C20/25; All dimensions of structural elements are estimates; The design of the foundation has to be made after analysis of soil conditions;

RECTORAT ENGINEERING PRINCIPLES

From using the river as a cooling ressource to harvesting nightly cool air for day refresher

Showing the flowng canopy, the library and faculty buildings in the rear

CLIMATE PRINCIPLES

THE CAMPUS PIAZZA

COMILOG HEADQUARTERS HQE CERTIFICATION STANDARD

The site for this project is a hilly sloped part of the city of Moanda, in the overall valleyed region, where geology has modeled a landscape whose nearest underground is mainly made of minerals. We’re only twenty miles away from the site of Oklo, where scientists once uncovered the rare phenomenon of a natural nuclear fission reactor in 1972.

The brief asked for a hundred and twenty offices building aimed to host in one site all the operating and administrative functions of the mining company, part of the French multinational Eramet.

The brief also asked for a building that passes the HQE international certification on the sustainability side. The result is an articulate set of three volumes that gently break upon themselves to better adapt to the hilly topography while maximizing daylight exposure and mitigating soil erosion. The openness of the facades comes with widespread usage of terracotta sunscreens as part of the strategy for reducing energy consumption by shielding the interiors from the excessive tropical heat.

Other sustainability features include harvesting rainfall water for sanitary usage, a double flux ac system based upon recycling nightly fresh air for daily cooling needs, as well as solar panels station and vertically-axed wind turbines for 0n-site energy production.

Locally found laterite and stone, as well as endemic palm trees and acacia and mango trees, constitute the base for landscaping project: Retaining walls, drainage, and new planting.

COMPETITION, 1ST PLACE, MOANDA, GABON 2015 MAISSA ARCHITECTURES

JEAN PIERRE MAISSA

THE MAIN FACADE FROM THE DOWNHILL

THE EXECUTIVE LOBBY

FRANCE EMBASSY

Within a historic wooded site, along Libreville waterfront, The France Embassy has a brief that asked for a net-zero building that would have been able to respond to a high standard security level and an HQE international certification – an international HQE standard set up on fourlevel (environment management, Energy management, Health management, and comfort) – Equivalent to the US LEED gold. On the environmental level, the site holds rich biodiversity comprising species such as turtles, crabs, birds, and a diversity of endemic vegetation that have to be taken into account.

Energy and sunshade management with topography took a significant part in shaping a building that shields its interiors from excessive heat, allows cross-ventilation, and facilitates a double flux air conditioning system by harvesting cooler nightly air. Other features include recycling rainwater for specific usage, producing energy through solar panels and vertically-axed wind turbines. The building implantation on the terrain minimized excavation and further soil erosion while replanting strategically to provide shade and using on-site materials such as laterite stones for retaining walls.

This project won a second-place within a roster of more than one hundred proposals.

WEST ENTRANCE-FACING FACADE

A gentle a careful integration in a biodiversity-rich site was key to seeking gold standard HQE certification

VIEW OF THE LOBBY Openess to the surounding nature and cross ventilation were also part of the sought-after International HQE certification

WITH BARTHELEMY GRINO ARCHITECTS, PARIS, FRANCE COMPETITION, SECOND PLACE, 2014 LIBREVILLE, GABON

CONSTRUCTIVE DETAIL OF THE FACADE Showcasing the leyered approach to sunscreening and shading, leading to passive climate

THE WEST FACADE

CROSS SECTION ALONG THE SLOPPING SITE Showcasing the building adaptation to topography

DNA OFFICE BUILDING

This project is part of the redevelopment of some central arteries of the city center of Libreville, dedicated to offices and business centers. The brief asked for an eight stories office and mix uses building for the national insurance authority headquarters. An urban façade able to display a certain level of sobriety yet highlighting an institutional function was the main architectural exercise at hand.

Other than that, there was a choice to temper the modernity of floor to ceiling bow windows-like opening with the brick face cladding. The brick cladding brings an atemporal expression to the building. It also weathers the slickness of the curtain wall and gentles the contrast to the surrounding urban context. The main façade faces west to the waterfront and has operable windows that allow simplicity in dealing with climate and ventilation. The openings are generous and large enough to adapt to either large open spaces or more cluttered settings inside. Generally, there is a fair amount of natural lighting in whatever interior space.

Overall it is a modular building rendered expressively complex and meaningful in terms of its architecture and the meaning of an institutional language.

MAISSA ARCHITECTURES

JEAN PIERRE MAISSA LIBREVILLE, GABON, 2012

COMILOG LIBREVILLE

MAISSA ARCHITECTURES JEAN PIERRE MAISSA LIBREVILLE, GABON, 2022

VIDEO PRESENTATION LINK: HTTPS://VIMEO.COM/678537584

“La baie des rois”, Libreville, Dec. 2021

Forest, Wood, Wind, and Water are the elements that strike the cord of sustainability, culture, and space-making. The building is poised to brace those elements to define its architectural typology. Its components are deemed to be replaced and renewed as they age. Its external envelope comprises 470 triangular frames of weathered and engineered Padouk, en emblematic local wood. The double curtain allows cross-ventilation into specific internal spaces while others can be sealed off for airtightness needs.

The new COMILOG headquarters in Libreville, in the “Baie des Rois,” is a unique opportunity to seal the historical and national destiny of the mining company in a singular furrow in Gabon’s identity Crib.

Spatially and symbolically linked to the city of Moanda in the province of Haut-Ogooué, the destiny of Comilog is national and seats in the front row of the mineral wealth of Gabon.

The architectural act presented here must be read in light of the entanglements of symbolic, cultural, and industrial outcomes. It aims to offer society a robust, optimistic, and mobilizing vision towards the significant future challenges of technological, industrial development, sustainable development, and green revolution.

The project bears four objectives:

a/ Starting from the specific conditions imposed by geography and history to create a recognizable place in the national project of the Libreville corniche, today, the “Baie des Rois.”

B/ Justifying a formal approach based on the potent symbolism of the forest and local culture through its envelope in Padouk wood and its “sinuous and free” articulation according to Gabon’s principles of traditional architecture.

C/ Proposing an inscription on the site that exploits its topographical and landscape qualities to produce an efficient and modern working and living environment that, while reinforcing the image and prestige of the company, while offering its inhabitants spatial and unique sights of the coastline, and Libreville estuary.

D/ Proposing an architecture with high environmental quality through the management of rainwater, the control, and reduction of energy consumption. Energy production through renewable sources to achieve a net-zero qualification.

On the maritime and historic facade of Libreville, which saw the birth of the Gabon nation – today the Bay of Kings – Comilog, after sixty years of anchoring in the lands of Haut Ogooué, now has the opportunity to reveal its role as an emblem and standard-bearer of Gabon’s industrial ambition. Through this architecture, the intersection of the weight of history with forest and cultural ecology on the one hand, and the natural and symbolic power of Gabon’s mineral wealth, on the other hand, captures the challenges of the contemporary world for release energy and an optimistic outlook towards the future. The building bends entirely to the site’s constraints to reveal a radical typology that combines local symbolism and the projection of modernity while deploying many sustainable development strategies in its implementation and operation.

Getting anchored in a symbolic and historical melting pot. The shores of the Libreville estuary, since the construction of the church of Sainte-Marie, have been the point of dialogue with otherness and self-construction of the territorial identity of the city and the developing country. The cathedral dominated and identified the Fort d’Aumale with the boats landing goods, new inhabitants, or new masters of the lands to be conquered.

Since then, there has been the master plan of Marcello D’Olivo, who, by marrying the relief and the morphology of the coastline, has designed one of the most beautiful cornices of the Atlantic facade of our continent. The main developments sketched out on the great Friuli architect drawing board are still waiting to be implemented. Almost five decades ago. There was a string of grand hotels and amazing beaches at one time.

The establishment of Comilog follows that of Total (Elf at the time), which involved the big names in French architecture of the 70s and 80s, in particular Claude Parent (the theoretician of oblique architecture), Michel Andrault, and Pierre Parat (the Totem Tower, the Palais Omnisports de Bercy, in Paris) in a competition won by the duo Lesné-Bernadac in 1976, with an eminently marine evocation, borrowing from travel and maritime navigation and which continues to define the profile of the bay of Libreville.

So there was the Elf building; now there will also be the Comilog building.

To do this, we wanted to offer an encounter with the otherness and the marine horizon of a local body, emerging from its forest, dressed in its culture, bending to the winds, and offering itself to the new challenges of the contemporary world while in pride and optimism.

A dynamic and sustainable architecture

The Comilog building will be entirely covered with a mesh of padouk wood frames, stained and shiny, which will provide it with exceptional protection from the sun, on its two very long and main facades, to the east (to the rising sun) and the west (at sunset). The “double skin” principle creates a sun and air filter, an essential barrier to heat and humidity. The fully glazed interior facade preserves diffused natural light in all the office floors and spaces of the building while releasing unfathomable visual perspectives towards the bay. Energy inputs in terms of mechanical air conditioning or lighting requirements are thus reduced. The padauk scales of the outer skin intermittently house photovoltaic panels, which, with other sustainable development strategies implemented (use of wood, reduction of energy consumption inputs, vertical axis wind turbine, recovery of rainwater, passive air conditioning) will significantly contribute to a possible HQE certification, if Comilog is willing to support this approach.

Following the example of the good rules of tropical construction, the building hovers over the ground for the most part, which allows it to overcome the vagaries of soil saturated with water - moreover saline - and guarantee its durability and ease of maintenance. This arrangement liberates protected spaces on the ground floor, conducive to protection against bad weather and users’ social, accessible, and benevolent congregation. Thus, the plot’s ground is freed up to nearly 70% resulting in a large forecourt, garden islands, and parking spaces.

Another advantage of the levitation of the volume is its ability to brace the sea winds and create a diffuse breeze in its surroundings, resulting in a microclimate and a certain environmental comfort. To sum up, the mainly longitudinal volume develops in the direction of the depth of the plot to match its geometry and ensure the most effective natural exposure to the interior spaces.

The north gable, blind, offers itself as a compass to the visitor for whom the building reveals itself through a tangential approach.

The underside of the high floor beam on the ground floor forms an undulating ceiling, a protective and reassuring canopy that channels and directs the flow of traffic like a central nave vault. The final bent of the volume on the horizon is the visual focal point towards the main entrance.

A dentist doctor and his family wanted to make the most of this beachside plot facing the Atlantic Ocean, in the outskirt of the city of Pointe-Noire, a historic trade hub of the French Colonial Empire, in the Republic of Congo.

Besides site adaptation and ocean sights fruition, the clients ask for a house that has to make the most of sustainable modern architecture tools and assures a significant level of autonomy from the not-so-reliable local energy grid.

The site presents a 35 percent slope towards the beach within a 30 meters span. Therefore, the entry-level is an orientation level that split the house in an upward nightly story, hosting two independent suites, with the most elevated ocean views and a low level where family rooms, the kitchen, and the main living rooms are situated. These rooms also accompany the gradual descent of the house organization towards Lowers outdoors spaces, the garden, and the beach.

The entry-level protrudes into a suspended infinity pool that’s connected to the underneath living room and family rooms while offering the most of a breathtaking seaside sight. This level also hosts two guest rooms.

Below grade, underneath the entry-level, there are the utility rooms, including water tanks for harvesting rainwater, battery for a solar roof, conceived as a photovoltaic shingles cladding roof.

The objective of the project was for a net-zero villa that would have sought HQE certification – an international HQE standard set up on four-level (environment management, Energy management, Health management, and comfort) – Equivalent to the US LEED gold.

Overall, sustainability features include recycling rainwater for specific usage, the solar roof for complete energy autonomy, even aiming to give back to the inefficient local grid.

The house poses itself in accordance to the slope, descending all along toward the beach with split volumes, although unified under an organic roof that drains and collects rainwater and deploys solar roofing. Adaptation to terrain minimized excavation and further soil erosion while replanting strategically to provide shade and using on-site materials such as laterite stones for retaining walls.

bohemia, 2009