2007/2009 - Paris

Office Building – Porte des Lilas, Paris

The Paris/Suburbs fringes perform a particular symbolic role.

The plot for this offices and business premises building is located avenue René Fonck which links Porte des Lilas to Pré-Saint-Gervais The avenue is typical of the urban sequences that mark the shift from Paris to the inner suburbs, beyond the Périphérique, with its changes of pattern, scale and type: passing from the dense and continuous fabric of inner-city Paris to the more varied fabric of the suburbs.

The building stands where these different logics meet. It sits in the axis of the Périphérique, coming from the West, and its elevated position offers a distant panorama, a relationship with the large urban landscape.
The project increases the urbanity and the density in the lower part of the site, along the rue René Fonck, and extends the green space on the eastern side in order to emphasise the residential character of Rue Raoul Wallenberg.

The base of the U-shaped building consists in two floors of business premises distributed by a route and a technical courtyard. Above come four floors of office space and, at the top, two attic levels which group specific spaces for receptions and reunions. These last floors, surrounded by terraces, offer a totally open view on the Plaine Saint-Denis, right up to Roissy airport. In its central part, the hall and the floors above, offer a transparency of view between the street and the interior courtyard.

The facades are made up of large windows, all of which can be opened, equipped with BSO (Brise-Soleil Orientable/directional sun-shade)(*) blinds that automatically come down according to the temperature and to the sunlight. The solid parts are clad with thick aluminium (profile created for the project).

Pyramide d’argent 2007

Client
Baticonseil Immobilier
Planner of the ZAC : SEMAVIP

Area
14 500 m2 , 10000 m² offices + 4500 m² activities total floor area

Cost budget
€23 million before tax

Location
Rue René Fonck – ZAC de la Porte des Lilas, Paris (19e)

Project management
Hérault Arnod Architectes, lead architect
Florent Bellet, project manager
Nicolas Ingéniérie, fluids
Batiserf, structure
Michel Forgue, economics
Cap Paysages, landscape designer

Timetable
Competition Mars 2005
Work began January 2007
Delivered May 2009

Programme
Offices and activities

Images
Labtop-rendering
Hérault Arnod

Photographs
André Morin