After almost half a century of mining activities in the southeastern region of Gabon, Eramet-Comilog Group, the French multinational, has joined forces with the Gabon Government to establish a specialized University in mining and metallurgy in Moanda. The Ecole des Mines et de la Métallurgie de Moanda (E3MG), is backed by the Nancy University (France). Beyond educating technical engineers, The E3MG will also be doing research, paving the way to help Gabon transitions its mining industry from solely extractive to manufacturing high valued metals.

The Campus spans a thirty-hectare 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 area, a power generator plant, clean water, and fire water storage.

The master plan focuses on the main building, which hosts teaching and management activities, a library, an auditorium, practice laboratories, and a medical unit.

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 composition features a concrete podium, which partly digs into the ground, wrapped with anodized aluminum sheets that protect the concrete from humidity and heat. The underground level hosts mechanical and IT rooms and a medical unit. It is accessible through an external slope ramp on the inward courtyard side and a car ramp from the exterior.

A 150 seat auditorium occupies the ground floor's left-wing, on the entrance side, while the connecting and the right branches are laboratories.

On the other hand, the upper level is structured by steel portals of I beams, angles, and braces on both façades and roof structures. The H configuration allows the diversity of usages while permitting unity. 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 halls are naturally illuminated and visually immersed in nature like all the non-specialized rooms in the upper level. The rest of the ground-floor hosts training laboratories for Chemistry (Metallurgy) and Geosciences for rocks studies.

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

Therefore, its massiveness is dynamically changing from a different point of view, and its reflexive patterns portray other 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.

The protruding mullions reinforce Sun reducing properties; those 450 millimeters extra external thins noses allow further shading, acting like "brise-soleil." Interiors partition walls are acoustic 13mm aluminum studded plasterboards, which would enable future adaptability.

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

Dropbox folder for high res photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l6c...