A "box" structure with clean lines and regular geometries: Dominique Perrault's Vénissieux Mediateque is based on the criterion of simplicity, clarity and comprehension. This "container for knowledge" seems to want to offer us an example of a universally understandable language.
The building is in fact designed to save energy, so that the gallery serves as an insulating gap. Another criterion that guided the building's design is flexibility, guaranteeing that space can be used in different ways and people and things can move around.
A second volume in the centre of the mediateque seems to cut it in two: this is the office building, a presence that appears almost extraneous to the large "flattened" volume below it but well linked with it, accessible directly from the mediateque hall.
