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Architects: Barre Bouchetard Architecture
- Area: 1700 m²
- Year: 2024
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Photographs:Maxime Verret
Text description provided by the architects. A Composite Block - The transformation of this industrial composite block in the city of Malakoff allows the creation of office spaces and workshops within a new architectural sequence that combines environmental requirements, constructive poetry, and memory of the site. The renovation project offers the opportunity to understand the inherent qualities of the various elements that make up the building, as well as the construction systems specific to each period and use, in order to make them visible and intelligible. The layering of successive extensions becomes the architectural material for this intervention, offering a new coherent narrative throughout the whole plot.
Situated Interventions - The original construction, dating from the early 20th century, is stripped of its plaster to reveal the composition of the facade and the original brickwork, restoring its strong identity as a production site. The 1950s extension, including the bridge building and the elevation, is dressed with a new curtain wall to replace the existing asbestos-clad one. Above the entrance, the project takes advantage of the setback of this extension to install cantilevered balconies that align with the street. These "extra" spaces provide a new quality to the premises and offer an outdoor space on each floor.
The design work has preserved the front steps while making the building accessible to all through the precise installation of an elevator within the building. This new vertical connection element subtly becomes a focal point in the facade through the specific design of the joinery and, thanks to the transparency of its structure, allows natural light to illuminate the shared landings. At the rear of the plot, the project focuses on preserving the characteristic structures of the production spaces (hall and sheds), and the generosity of the volumes they offer, while controlling the climatic conditions to enable new activities. The construction systems, once highlighted, provide clarity to the different spaces and generate atmospheres unique to each period of the site.
Structure And Climate - The intervention adapts to the specificities of the different buildings on the site to create ideal conditions for future uses. The goal is to minimize the added materials by using them precisely to offer new qualities to the existing structures that have been preserved. The balconies and the new skin of the bridge building, in particular, use steel and aluminum as the primary framework to be drawn thinly and bring the desired transparency without having to reinforce the existing metal structure. The same approach guides the work on the hall: glass is reserved for the central roof to provide broad light to this space, while the peripheral roof is designed to be as lightweight as possible in order to preserve the original frame with a few located reinforcements.
Natural light becomes a key feature of the interior spaces, benefiting from solar gains for winter heating. These gains are controlled in the summer through the use of external textile blinds (in the main building) and solar-control glazing (in the hall). These simple systems are combined with the thin-built thickness or vertical draft effect to promote natural ventilation through openings in the facade or the height of the skylight. The sizing and use of mechanical equipment can thus be minimized. Within the building, the openings discovered during the works are maintained with glazed walls identifiable by wooden joinery. These create unique views that connect spaces and constructions from different periods. Wood, also present in the hall and forming the framework of the reconstructed shed, addresses technical (lightness) and logistical (accessibility at the rear of the site) challenges while providing the visual and tactile qualities to the spaces it shapes.
