Office Building in Bolougne-Billancourt

Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Photo © Daniel Rovira

Architects: OAB Ferrater & Partners

Location: 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France
Year: 2005

The object of a mixed intervention on the part of SAEM Val-de-Seine Aménagement, the building is situated on a block with housing and a teaching facility in a new area of Boulogne built on land that once belonged to Renault.

Following the calling of the competition, the extent of the constraints imposed by the planning regulations and the agents intervening in the process is interpreted through a sober, simple building. A product of the central communications core, the open floor plan conveys the structure to the facade, which is covered with silvery phylite stone and windows and frames of anodized aluminum. The rock-like complex is cut back in a cantilever on the ground floor and in the cutback of the attic on the opposite side, thus facilitating access to the inner courtyard.

The strict modulation of the offices (2.0m) leads to the use of a single size of stone (45 x 90) and a single window of 90 x 2.70, with the unique exceptions of the ground floor, where the glass is moved back, the crown, where the window is made bigger and positioned on the outside plane, and with the strategic suppression of certain apertures.

The main hall provides transparency of view to the rear garden, following access under a hanging canopy of stainless steel, the reception area in oak and the illuminated stone columns of the elevators.