Parisian architecture firm Samuel Delmas has created a vernacularly inspired building that aims to provide good architectural reason and healthcare service to keep people from escaping this predominantly rural part of France. Nozay is a town 26 km southwest from Paris, famous for its blue stone but endemic to a condition happening across Europe - the depopulation of the countryside.
Sitting on a gently sloping hill, the town's new healthcare centre has privileged views over Nozay and its traditional gabled roof homes. The architects reinterpreted these and designed a playful roofscape consisting of seven zinc pyramid-like wells that diffuse soft light into the offices and consultation rooms below, as well as providing natural ventilation.
The environmental approach continues in the building's outer skin: grey vertical zinc fins function as sun shading devices, while providing a natural yet modern aesthetic to the building. The facade is punctuated by large double height aluminium openings, or loggias, strategically positioned in order to frame views from interior spaces.
The dark envelope - referencing the local blue stone - contrasts with white interiors, inspiring a clean and healthy environment. Healthcare, administration and visitor spaces are arranged around two interior courtyards that serve as way-finding tools on both levels. These enhance the spaces with natural light and a closer relation with nature, an atmosphere favourable to healing and positive thinking.
The parking lot is located on the lower level of the building, partly sunken into the landscape and clad in blue stone - as if to ground the building further into the local vernacular. The architects carefully sculpted the surrounding terrain into a natural public space by introducing plants, trees, and stone-paved walking paths.
Delmas' project perfectly blends in to the town's skyline and firmly anchors itself to the landscape. Nozéens have a reason to gloat at their town's welcome latest architectural addition.
Grey vertical zinc fins function as sun shading devices for the centre
The architects reference the area's traditional gabled roof homes in creating a playful zinc roofscape for the building
The dark envelope's colouring was chosen to reference the area's local blue stone
Inside, the interiors are kept clean and simple in whites and light coloured hues
The layout is punctured by two interior courtyards that serve as way-finding tools on both levels
The architects aimed for natural light and views of the surrounding nature to penetrate the building
INFORMATION
For more information on Samuel Delmas visit their website
-
The Wallpaper* Design Issue comes with our Salone del Mobile must-seesThe May 2025 issue of Wallpaper* is on sale now, taking in Milan Design Week, the Venice Biennale, and a very stylish tea party
-
Aboard Gio Ponti's colourful Arlecchino train in Milan, a conversation about design with FormafantasmaThe design duo boards Gio Ponti’s train bound for the latest Prada Frames symposium at Milan Design Week
-
The ultimate high-performance earbuds, courtesy of McLaren and Bowers & WilkinsThe new Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 McLaren Edition continues a decade’s worth of cross-pollination between these two tech-focused British manufacturers
-
Stay in a Parisian apartment which artfully balances minimalism and warmthTour this pied-a-terre in the 7th arrondissement, designed by Valeriane Lazard
-
Marta Pan and André Wogenscky's legacy is alive through their modernist home in FranceFondation Marta Pan – André Wogenscky: how a creative couple’s sculptural masterpiece in France keeps its authors’ legacy alive
-
Paris’ architecturally fascinating Villejuif-Gustave Roussy metro station is now openVillejuif-Gustave Roussy is part of the new Grand Paris Express, a transport network that will raise the architectural profile of the Paris suburbs
-
Explore wood architecture, Paris' new timber tower and how to make sustainable construction look ‘iconic’A new timber tower brings wood architecture into sharp focus in Paris and highlights ways to craft buildings that are both sustainable and look great: we spoke to project architects LAN, and explore the genre through further examples
-
A transformed chalet by Studio Razavi redesigns an existing structure into a well-crafted Alpine retreatThis overhauled chalet in the French Alps blends traditional forms with a highly bespoke interior
-
La Grande Motte: touring the 20th-century modernist dream of a French paradise resortLa Grande Motte and its utopian modernist dreams, as seen through the lens of photographers Laurent Kronental and Charly Broyez, who spectacularly captured the 20th-century resort community in the south of France
-
Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain unveils plans for new Jean Nouvel buildingFondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain has plans for a new building in Paris, working with architect Jean Nouvel
-
Discover Tempe à Pailla, a lesser-known Eileen Gray gem nestled in the French RivieraTempe à Pailla is a modernist villa in the French Riviera brimming with history, originally designed by architect Eileen Gray and extended by late British painter Graham Sutherland
