Atelier Zündel & Cristea architects shared with us their Grenelle Tower in Paris France, which has been commended by the Mipim AR FUTURE awards. At a time when Paris is reviewing its ambitions of ‘greatness’, the richness of the city’s diversity is transposed vertically into towers of shifting density. More images and architect’s description after the break.
Within a country where speed is not necessarily a condition of efficiency, and where “quality of life” is elevated to “the art of living”, a purely geographic and territorial expansion based upon the American model is unfeasible.
At the outset, we imagined the tower from an initial volume, which we considered a “spatial texture”, consisting of slabs stacked vertically to a height of 200 meters. Within this solid and uniform texture, we applied a dynamic formation process utilizing an empty tube of manifold geometry. In motion, this cavity becomes a generator of space, a dynamic, fluctuating, and evolving construct. Its topology will help us delineate such properties as proximity, contiguity, continuity.
More concretely, we are able to liken the tower to the diversity of the city: the uniform fabric of Parisian homes, the rapid transportation network, the squares, the parks, the avenues, the public meeting places of Parisians known and renowned.
Architects: Atelier Zündel & Cristea Location: Paris, France Consultants: BET CHOULET Construction cost: 300 M€ (ex VAT) Gross area: 168 000 m² Mission: Conception Project: Multiactivities skyscraper
