Winning proposal for a functional steel sculpture on Toulouse’s Mirail campus, France
About
(Winning proposal – 1 % artistique)
Worms is a 7.45 m-long folded-tube sculpture that doubles as informal seating on the esplanade of Toulouse II – Jean-Jaurès University (ex-Mirail Campus). Inspired by Georges Candilis’ original grid-based plan for the campus, the piece merges a strict 6 × 6 cm regulating matrix with the free gesture of a single poly-line. The result is an “open form” : a line that rises, twists and re-enters the ground, inviting occupation while remaining unequivocally sculptural.
A parametric script transforms the poly-line into 300 interlocking “comb” elements, each cut from 4 mm steel sheet. The grid ensures structural clarity; the line provides spatial play.
Visitors encounter Worms as both landmark and amenity: a continuous “root” or driftwood log that offers perched, reclined and group seating. By rejecting a conventional bench typology, the work foregrounds variability—the same principle that underpins today’s digital mass-customisation. It echoes the university’s mission of open knowledge exchange, demonstrating how rigorous systems and free expression can coexist in a single, evolving form.
