CHAPELLE INTERNATIONAL Paris (France) - 2016

Contexte & enjeux

A white concrete monolith set in metal takes its place at the junction of the iron, the city and the new Chapelle International district. An office building with a strong, massive presence protects the public spaces from acoustic nuisance and provides a backdrop to the new active square. The project is designed as a “bridge-building”: its base in the form of a pierced concrete ring helps to cross the railway tracks of the inner ring, the main constraint of this site.

The project translates the 22,000 m² tertiary programme into simple volumetrics, producing a very “legible” architecture whatever the angle of view: the entrance at porch level, the office crown, the bow on Boulevard Ney, the upper gardens, the central patio…
Pure geometry, and nothing else. In plan, a polygon.

The prefabricated white concrete modules making up the façade, all identical, accommodate in their geometry the variations in proportions between glazing, metal and concrete, allowing a specific response on each façade (acoustics, daylight, solar protection, etc.).

In the end, nothing but construction and a construction logic. Sometimes, looking for some sensations through all this: the smooth and the rough, the matt and the shiny, the “quiet strength” of a building playing with constraints.