University, Paris

The Atrium Building, which the architects describe as 'low-tech' because of the use of conventional building materials and standard products, slots into the campus grid system designed by Edouard Albert and built between 1964 and 1971. But although it adopts the bay width of the adjacent buildings, its facade – a screen of perforated anodized aluminium, randomly composed of eight different panels – is radically different. The Atrium also sets itself apart with a canted main floor that smoothly bridges the height difference between the two sides of the site. As the name suggests, the core of the building is an enormous open well in which all the circulation comes together. PÉRIPHÉRIQUES were determined to avoid blind passageways, cul-de-sacs and poorly lit corridors for, according to what could be called a refreshingly low-tech approach to the origin and dissemination of scientific knowledge, 'the better people circulate, the better ideas and knowledge are able to circulate'.