Located on the Landes de Juzan campus in Anglet, the Arkinova Green Bussiness Incubator proposed by the Côte-Basque-Adour Agglomeration is a place where innovative young companies can be found, encouraging interdisciplinary cross-fertilization between academic research and industrial knowledge.

Global Design & Architecture Design Awards 2022
First Award | Office Building (Built)

©GUIRAUD-MANENC ARCHITECTURE OFFICE

The incubator is set in an urban wasteland, open on a wood and a protected estey in the heart of the Basque coast Adour. The building is a reflection of the dialogue between this landscaped site and the program.

To answer the environmental challenges of the program: dual certification and the BEPOS objective, the idea is to make architecture the vector of these performances, playing with the assets of the context and appealing to the common sense of the users.

Creating an interior landscape built in echo to the natural landscape, the building is manifested in its implementation by making perceptible the structural forces, the innervating networks and the envelope of the building as architectural elements in full participating in the Identity of the place. The atmospheres are qualified by precise assemblages of raw and durable materials such as concrete, wood and metal, providing a sensitive touch at the spaces.

©GUIRAUD-MANENC ARCHITECTURE OFFICE

The architecture of the incubator is revealed with subtlety in order to create, at the heart of the effervescence of the agglomeration, a privileged environment, calm and conducive to work, a way to inhabit this place. The limits between the exterior and the interior are intentionally blurred in order to benefit from the vitality of the environment, with the concern to integrate in the heart of the building the presence of natural light and its variations.

In the West side, in an urban connection, the experimental hall exposes itself in a panorama on Mirambeau street, by a large horizontal incise, as a signal announcing the research and development work housed in the incubator.

To the east, echoing the landscape of the Estey, the facade of the offices opens generously on nature. External walkways let you enjoy the softness of the site and encourage informal meetings by extending outside the workspaces.

©GUIRAUD-MANENC ARCHITECTURE OFFICE

At the heart of the incubator, the bioclimatic atrium brings together these workspaces as a forum open to debates of ideas.

It also gathers the vertical and horizontal circulations treated in rhythmical route, revealing the activities, letting enjoy natural light and offering framing on the trees landscape.

Each one is no longer the inhabitant of a floor, an office, but a place of work in which are shared knowledge, tools, dedicated spaces and services.

Evolutive, the building is designed to shape, adapt to the demand, suspended to future societal, technical and energy evolutions. Leaning on the structure as a pivot, the envelope is an interchangeable and recyclable skin. The interior is designed as flexible and reversible, it remains ductile to the uses.

Arkinova Green Bussiness Incubator will live at the tempo of the young companies that will invest it, appropriating it and making it evolve.