Immeuble avenue de France

Type

Bureaux

Date de réalisation

2011

Ingénieur civil

AB Ingénieurs Sa

Maître de l'ouvrage

Fondation des immeubles pour les organisations internationales

Autre(s) intervenant(s)

R.G. Riedweg et Gendre SA, Schumacher Ingénierie SA, MAB Ingénierie Sa, Ingénieurs Conseils Scherler SA, BCS S.A., Estia SA

Surface brute

17'989 m2

Coût

Procédure

concours

Architecte

group8

Interview de l'architecte

Descriptif

At the outset, the project for this administrative building concerned the WTO extension. It comprised a large reception area and escalators going down to the conference rooms and offices. Since the international organisation wished to group its activities at its current headquarters, its execution was delayed then implemented in a much simpler form, that is to say an offer of offices for non-government or international organisations, missions or even independent rentals. There remains, from this simplification, the large hall accessed by a footbridge from avenue de France and which overlooks the railway lines. This hall, also containing a cafeteria, gives access to two lift blocks. This L-shaped building, adjoining the gable wall of the next door building, is a highly condensed construction in order to obtain the maximum number of floors in relation to the authorised dimensions: “active” slab in very fine concrete and floor raised by a few centimetres. Corridors lead to the offices, also of minimum dimensions. The facades are composed of alternating glass panels and opaque coloured panels whose chromatic variations stem from the “pixelization” of a photo of a setting sun. In order to eliminate noise pollution from the road and railway, the facades are covered, on three sides, by a second glass skin whose finish varies randomly in four shades from extra-white to slighting reflecting.