Louis Dreyfus Armateurs headquarters

Suresnes, France

Office Buildings

Architects: Atelier Zündel Cristea

Location: 21 quai Gallieni, 92150 Suresnes, France
Year: 2015

Our intervention comprises three significant aspects that together come to define the project, imparting a new image to the whole: open working spaces, atriums and a new façade. The building’s initial form, with its floors distributed in two main directions, helped us reinvent it. Without departing significantly from this initial structural logic, we took advantage of it by devising loops in the layout of each level. This organization around a center allowed us to conserve a reduced number of security exits and stairwells, while respecting fire regulations. The cutting out of vertical openings in the middle of each floor allows natural light to reach the heart of the building. The rounded form of the floors transmits ’softness’ to the facades as well as to the building’s integral final volume, allowing it to come up to the street at a harmonious and elegant angle. Two ventilation spaces are present at the heart of the floors; empty square meters not lost, but functioning. Technically designed to meet the building’s requirements for good sound and thermal insulation, the façade is distinguished aesthetically on its lower windows with a silkscreen of waves approaching the shore.