In Paris (14th arrondissement), for the GHU Paris Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne (project owner), Pargade Architectes completed the new Neuroscience Center in 2024. This project bridges the legacy of architect Charles Auguste Questel (1807–1888) with a facility decidedly open to the city. Since its founding, Sainte-Anne Hospital has been a laboratory for mental health and also serves as a laboratory for architecture and urban planning. Within this demanding heritage context, the Neuroscience project, designed by Pargade Architectes, envisions the hospital of tomorrow through its architectural approach.
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The program called for a complete reconstruction of Sainte-Anne's neuroscience university center, comprising a four-room operating and interventional sector, two electroconvulsive therapy rooms, an imaging department, 135 beds and spaces for consultations, and a day hospital.
Furthermore, the program’s ambition was to create a strong connection between psychiatry and neuroscience, leading to a design approach that considers the entirety of the seven-hectare site, half of which is landscaped as green spaces.
The functional organization of the Neuroscience Center thus meets the new complexities of hospital programs. The center is arranged with flexible multi-purpose floors, adaptable to different zones centered around patient flows and optimized management of horizontal and vertical circulation. Hospital-university hubs, or satellites, interconnected and accessible to the city, are situated within the historical framework around a cooling green area. The project thus shapes the future site layout, paving the way for the "hospital eco-district of tomorrow."
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In continuation of Questel's utilitarian neoclassical architectural style, the choice of a pure volumetric form, with a reduced vocabulary of repetitive elements, creates a sense of unity and completeness. The handmade limestone-colored brickwork connects the structure with its surroundings, bridging the Parisian suburban and historical settings, with a new urban square that interfaces between the street and the interior of the site. Set apart from the historical quadrangle of Sainte-Anne, the project reinforces the hospital’s overall pavilion layout, highlights its perfect geometry, and opens it resolutely to the city.
In the healthcare sector, architecture is central to all current societal considerations: heritage and regulatory requirements, ecological, sustai- nability, and flexibility demands, optimization of patient care conditions and staff working environments, as well as significant financial constraints. In response, Pargade Architectes (Jean-Philippe Pargade, Caroline Rigaldiès) have developed the concept of a hospital open to the city. Two projects exemplify this vision: the Neuroscience Center at Sainte-Anne Hospital in Paris and the CASH in Nanterre (France).
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Complete reconstruction of Sainte-Anne Hospitals university neuroscience center, including: a surgical and interventional area with 4 rooms and 2 electroconvulsive therapy rooms, an imaging department, 135 beds and spaces, consultation rooms, and a day hospital. The building has achieved the E+C- label (Energy 3, Carbon 1) with the installation of solar panels and 4,200 m² of green spaces.
Since its founding, Sainte-Anne Hospital has been a laboratory for mental health and also ser- ves as a laboratory for architecture and urban planning. Within this demanding heritage context, the Neuroscience project, designed by Pargade Architectes, envisions the hospital of tomorrow through its architectural approach.
 |
The program called for a complete reconstructi- on of Sainte-Annes neuroscience university center, comprising a four-room operating and interventional sector, two electroconvulsive the- rapy rooms, an imaging department, 135 beds and spaces for consultations, and a day hospital.
 |
The functional organization of the Neuroscience Center thus meets the new complexities of hospi- tal programs. The center is arranged with flexible multi-purpose floors, adaptable to different zones centered around patient flows and optimized ma- nagement of horizontal and vertical circulation.
 |
 |
Hospital-university hubs, or satellites, intercon- nected and accessible to the city, are situated wit- hin the historical framework around a cooling green area. The project thus shapes the future site layout, paving the way for the “hospital eco-district of tomorrow.” In continuation of Questel’s utilitarian neoclassi- cal architectural style, the choice of a pure volu- metric form, with a reduced vocabulary of repe- titive elements, creates a sense of unity and completeness. The handmade limestone-colo- red brickwork connects the structure with its surroundings, bridging the Parisian suburban and historical settings, with a new urban square that interfaces between the street and the interior of the site.
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Set apart from the historical quadrangle of Sainte-Anne, the project reinforces the hospital’s overall pavilion layout, highlights its perfect geo- metry, and opens it resolutely to the city.
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Pargade Architectes
Pargade Architectes, Jean-Philippe Pargade and Caroline Rigaldiès architectes associés, advocates urban planning and creative architecture based on a sustainable, humanist and fair vision of the act of building. Its ambition is to anticipate future lifestyles and ways of working, particularly by taking account of the digital revolution, and thus to anticipate new projects for society. It proposes an art of living, places of well-being. It seeks to create a poetic sense of place.
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Pargade Architectes relies on a long-standing, experienced team. Structured into different areas of activity, the team is made up of architects and engineers, and is well versed in collaborative working thanks to the integrated BIM tool.It is renowned for its many outstanding achievements. With more than 25 years' proven experience, it is one of France's leading experts in the hospital sector. The Hôpital des Armées Bégin in Saint Mandé, the Pôle Santé Sarthe et Loir in Bailleul, the private hospital in Villeneuve d'Ascq, the hospital in Mantes-la-Jolie, the Hôpital Saint Joseph in Paris and its master plan, and the extension to the Hôpital Saint Joseph in Marseille are all projects that have marked the evolution of hospital concepts.In the field of education and research, the Pôle Scientifique et Technique Paris-Est at the heart of the Marne-la-Vallée ‘sustainable city’ cluster and the Institut Photovoltaïque d'Ile-de-France on the Saclay plateau are exemplary in their integration into the ‘Greater Paris’ project.
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‘Greater Paris’ project. Other emblematic projects, such as the French Embassy in Warsaw, one of the ‘fundamentals’ exhibited at the Cité du Patrimoine, or the Biology Centre at the Croix-Rousse Hospital in Lyon, the CNRS laboratories in Toulouse or the housing at Paris Seine Rive Gauche define the image of rigour and innovation of the architectural practice.In association with Art & Build, the agency is building the new University Hospital Centre in Nantes, a unique healthcare project in France, which is currently under construction.
Release: FE Consulting, Paris
