Rehabilitation of the Gabriel Baron residence in Angers, an exemplary environmental and societal project

“The many initiatives undertaken by Spie batignolles construction regions on this project make it a real showcase of the know-how and commitments of the CSR policy of the Spie batignolles group”, explains Christophe RENAUD, activity director within the Western regional department of Spie batignolles.

256 homes thoroughly renovated with a target of -50% heat loss

The rehabilitation operation, aided by the National Agency for Urban Renovation (ANRU), is part of the redevelopment project for the MonPlaisir district north of Angers, aimed at instilling new dynamism to offer residents better quality of life and a reduction of their energy charges.

The Gabriel Baron residence has 256 apartments, divided into 5 buildings of 5 floors and 1 tower of 8 floors. For all of these structures, distributed around 22 entrance halls, teams from Spie batignolles construction regions work on an occupied site for 18 months. 15 working days are required per apartment to carry out the renovation work planned by the lessor Podeliha.

The contract also provides for the development of 34 apartments which will receive the Habitat Seniors Services (HSS) label, as well as the construction of 4 lift shafts (Baron 1 and 2 and Schuman buildings).

The project concerns both the improvement of the built environment and the surrounding landscaping. At the foot of the buildings, particular attention will be given to the revegetation of the various sites and car parks.

The nature of the work and the new materials/equipment installed have been defined with the aim of achieving a 50% reduction in heat loss.

All the exterior walls of the 5 buildings and the tower will be wrapped in external thermal insulation (ITE) with coating for the buildings and metal cladding for the tower and two gables.

The attic of the Gabriel Baron Tower will also be insulated by blowing wool.

All exterior joinery will be replaced with new PVC joinery. The landing doors and the doors giving access to the various halls and corridors will be changed for new elements.

In the housing, the works consist of:

• Replace plumbing fixtures,
• Overhaul interior doors,
• Redo the earthenware of the wet rooms,
• Repaint wet rooms,
• Cover all floors with soft ground,
• Ensure electrical safety.

To ensure the safety of the tenants, the electrical installation will be brought up to standard, the cellar floors will be concreted, the access ramp to the tower improved and each building will benefit from a new access control system.

The cost of the work amounts to more than 11 million euros for final delivery scheduled for the end of January 2024.

A pilot project for the registration of Units of Ecological Values ​​(UVE)

“To shake up our habits and our way of designing a site, we asked for the intervention of an ecologist. This decision was motivated by the desire to plan the work to be carried out with respect for biodiversity. The ecologist opened up a new field of knowledge for us to adapt our practices to the challenges of local biodiversity.”, specifies Christophe RENAUD.

The ecologist's mission was to identify all the local fauna and flora in order to propose solutions to the design and site teams aimed at limiting the impact of the works on their preservation. For example, the identification of a particular bird species led to the installation of nesting boxes on the facades. As this is a first pilot, not all the initiatives proposed by the ecologist could be implemented. The short-term objective is to create a UVE recovery platform, reproducible on a majority of Spie batignolles building sites, making it possible to propose a planning and coherent actions through the prism of biodiversity.

A project to raise awareness among local residents to highlight the challenges of protecting the biodiversity that surrounds them is carried out by the site teams, in collaboration with the ecologist.

Spie batignolles construction regions has entered into a partnership with an association, Matière Grise, to set up a reuse process. An ephemeral market (site store) will be organized directly on the site to offer a source of resources from the deconstruction of the rehabilitated buildings.

In terms of recycling, the teams called on the services of Waste Market Place, as part of a partnership signed under a framework contract with all the entities of the Spie batignolles group. Waste Market Place manages waste from 7 streams (cardboard, metal, etc.) and is committed to the best possible waste recovery rate, at more than 80%, whereas regulations require a minimum of 70%. To date, out of a production of 18 tonnes of waste, the recovery rate is nearly 93%.

The operation aims for BBC Renovation labelling.

The Gabriel Baron residence rehabilitation project intends to obtain this Golden Frog Trophy, the audit of which is scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2023.

A strong human dimension

On this project, all the stakeholders have mobilized for the implementation of a professional integration campaign aimed at offering work to people in difficulty far from employment. In total, more than 7 hours of work are part of this social system. The hours of insertion concern both the employees of Spie batignolles, the co-contractors (architect, design office, etc.) but also the few subcontractors mandated for the operation (site work - demolition - elevator - roofing - painting - electricity and cleaning).

Spie batignolles aims for the hours of integration to be carried out as a priority by residents of the district. Proof of the success of this social approach, Ali, the resident relations officer, comes from a previous integration scheme set up on another Spie batignolles construction regions site, which led to his hiring on a permanent contract.

To guarantee the success of this integration policy, the operational staff of Spie batignolles working on this site have been trained in the tutoring of temporary staff undergoing integration.

To preserve the health and safety of employees, the Alter Ego organization intervenes every morning to provide warm-up and stretching sessions before going to their workstations. In the same perspective, certain materials have been adapted in order to limit the loading forces on the companions. This is particularly the case with the development of a specific handling cage intended to facilitate the handling of materials intended for the 256 housing units.

An optimized organization for control of duration, cost and quality

All of the work is carried out while the buildings are fully occupied by the residents. For this reason and in order to commit to perfectly respecting deadlines and costs with Podeliha, Spie batignolles construction regions has implemented a certain number of processes. They make it possible at the same time to facilitate exchanges between the various actors of the operation (contractor, project manager, group and residents), to optimize all the tasks carried out and to achieve high quality. of realization in the respect of deadlines and prices.

• REHA SOLUTION Kit developed by Spie batignolles construction regions Faced with the large number of residences to be renovated in France to achieve the energy transition objectives, Spie batignolles construction regions has developed a site kit focused on the issue of the rehabilitation of on-site housing busy. Baptized “REHA SOLUTION KIT”, this defines a set of collaborative working methods to facilitate exchanges with all stakeholders including relations with residents.

Site monitoring panels have thus been standardized, information sheets with site contact have been drawn up, among other initiatives. An application, RéhApp, has even been developed to automatically generate housing cycles, providing 15 days of intervention for the renovation of each apartment, with the distribution of the various tasks. 2 accommodations are open every day.

• Use of lean

This method of organizing tasks, borrowed from the industrial world (particularly the automobile industry) is becoming widespread on the Spie batignolles worksites. It consists of precisely anticipating all the tasks carried out by the teams over the entire duration of the construction site in order to project the various logistical and organizational flows, etc. to increase productivity by avoiding any loss of time. This process also contributes to the development of team skills.*

• BIM

As part of the partnership between Spie batignolles and the digital collaboration platform Kairnial (formerly Resolving), a documentary module, as well as an online quality and reservations monitoring module have been used.

• Increase in the “own share”

To control the quality of work, the duration of the work, the associated costs and strengthen the relationship with residents, Spie batignolles has chosen to maximize the number of its employees on the work site, by limiting the use of subcontractors.

Spie batignolles has thus assigned employees with complementary skills to work on a majority of trades: roller shutters, interior/exterior joinery, earthenware, plumbing, placo partitions, cladding. In total, 40 hours of work are carried out directly by 000 workers and 26 site managers.