Today a public place must create the opportunity to expand the uses, to create bridges over functions or programs, to allow meetings, debates and exchanges.

The MRI will offer a flexibility, which will make it capable of receiving a variety of uses, to adapt, to offer a familiar atmosphere but still flexible, and most of all it is a space that is capable of attracting a ‘young’ audience.” With this words Stéphanie Bru and Alexandre Theriot, founder of Bruther, commented their project for this Research Centre in the peninsula of Caen, in France.

The site, located along the canal, is a visible and exposed site in an area that is under a redevelopment and is located near major projects (Cargo, ENSAM, BMVR, the courthouse).

Although the neighborhood is marked by a collection of autonomous architecture, the coming of a new building should not give the impression of “yet another object” fully autistic to his environment. In this context it is a continuation of another type of architecture: based on confrontation rather than joint ownership and seeking a common geometry in the plan, it guarantees harmony between these different and unique architectural expressions of its context.

Bruther proposed to build a high-capacity structure, which makes it possible to invent a device that can create a set of rich and diverse situations.

A prefabricated and efficient structure determines free floors, makes it flexible and capable of evolving, thus adjusted to the needs of the program. The optimization of the space for circulation and the conception of a spatial grid are the foundation of the project’s freedom and give its ability to respond to diverse and functionally different demands of the program, a program that can change and evolve with time. It is therefore to combine an optimized frame bearing points with almost unlimited ability to change the partitioning.