Wicona equips The Place, new signal building in Montrouge

In the immediate vicinity of the Porte d'Orléans, the Vache Noire district in Montrouge (Hauts-de-Seine) attracts young professionals and many companies who choose to build their offices there due to the proximity to the capital and all the surrounding shops.

Vache Noire district: new urban heart in the south of Paris

Located at 134-136 avenue Aristide Briand, The Place adjoins the emblematic Vache Noire shopping center and stands out as a strategic address due to its location and its access to major public transport routes such as line 4, the RER B and by 2024, the future metro line 15. This key location set the bar high for the new office building. The Place was intended to support the renewal and dynamism of this rapidly developing neighborhood.

The street corner building, delivered in March 2023, was acquired by GCI and its partner, Crédit Suisse Asset management, from Kaufman & Broad, Idevi and Pallado Promotion. The work was entrusted to Bateg, a subsidiary of VINCI Construction.

The challenges of the program: participating in the dynamism of the neighborhood and proposing new ways of working

In addition to the requirements for a sustainable building aimed at Breeam Very Good and HQE Excellent certifications associated with the Effinergie + label, the specifications required optimizing the sharing of spaces and finding “standard” dimensions. But how, on a landlocked site, can we offer an office building that complies with new working methods which combines summer comfort, natural light and green spaces while responding to the environmental challenges of tomorrow? The proximity to rue Aristide Brillant and Place de la Vache Noire meant high acoustic insulation of the exposed façade.

The architectural response of Agence A Bechu et Associés combines functionality, efficiency and aesthetics. The Place covers 10.147 m² on 8 levels spread over platforms whose surface area varies from 870 to 1.400 m². These spaces can accommodate 900 workstations. The user is placed at the heart of the project. It benefits from more than 1.000 m² of shared spaces grouped on the garden level and ground floor around a hall which extends through a garden foyer. There you can find a restaurant, a fitness room, a bike club, and multipurpose rooms allowing you to organize events on site. The convivial spaces like the office floors open onto 1.000 m² of terraces and gardens. These offer an open-air promenade which rises from the garden level to 4^rd floor bypassing the ground floor. 119 parking spaces are provided in the basement.

The Place offers comfortable, modular and bright volumes designed to accommodate new working methods and increase the creativity of employees.

Finding, on the office floors, the standards of the 1,35 meter grid and the depth of 5,5 meters, despite the complex geometry of this T-shaped landlocked plot, was one of the challenges of the project design. . “Providing normal dimensions in these conditions has been a constant concern. » summarizes Mounir Soubaï of the A Bechu et Associés Agency.

The building is made up of two large stone monoliths which intersect. The hall is at their point of convergence. It is crossed by the perspective of the gardens. A large wall composed of a succession of backlit photographic planes reinterprets this theme and amplifies it in the hall.

For Mounir Soubaï:“Our desire was to emphasize the proximity to the capital by drawing inspiration from the classic superposition of Parisian facades: a base which encompasses the first floor, 4 floors then a crowning. The stone which adorns the facades and the metal which covers the crowning accentuate this evocation. The offset of the windows supports the horizontal composition of the facade and accompanies the movement on the avenue. At the corner, the bays are concentrated, superimposed and project towards the square. »

The bow windows which mark the corner of the facades constituted a technical challenge in the design and implementation of the exterior joinery.

WICONA joinery and facade systems: from the range to tailor-made

On the recommendations of the AR-C design office, the SERALU company implemented carpentry assemblies composed of strip frames from the WICLINE 65 range, on a frame of 1,35 meters wide by 2,80 meters height. These modules combine French-style single-leaf openings and fixed ones, on a glazed sill, and conceal a motorized woven fabric blind behind the upper crosspiece, aligned with the inside of the frame uprights. The whole being integrated into a steel pre-frame placed on the surface of the stone cladding or on the surface of a coating.

Four typologies of modules composed of 1, 2, 3 or 4 strip frames were thus imagined by the architect to punctuate the facade. Two profile creations made it possible to provide inertia reinforcement on the interior side and facilitate the opening/closing of the opening (frame) and to conceal the awning box (transom) underlines Denis Gallois from the AR design office- C before adding “This desire to find regular frames of 1,35 meters also made it possible to facilitate future developments, and in particular the possible partitioning of the trays by systematically impacting, in the same place and in the same way, the rear faces of the frame. »

A rhythmic nuance for the gable of the facade located at the corner of rue Aristide Brillant and rue d'Arcueil was provided with bow windows whose objective was to mark the street angle and give a perspective from the Place de la Vache Noire. Successful bet. The AR-C design office recreated a metal framework which rests on consoles protected against fire by an enclosure of sand-lime plates (the floor of the bow windows must have the same fire resistance as the slabs of the concrete floors ). This made it possible to use the same glass frames and cladding. A site notice was issued for the creation of these bow windows.

In total, the SERALU company produced 235 joinery units, including 100 m² with fire levels. All composite modules were completely prefabricated in the workshop and installed using the site's tower crane.

A large two-story recessed porch with drum and cylindrical post marks the main entrance to the building, located along Avenue Aristide Briand. Inside, there is an impressive reception hall which rises to double height. It opens towards the perspective of the gardens and is extended by a monumental staircase towards the living spaces bathed in natural light on the garden level.

The glass curtain wall of the reception area reaches 7,7 meters high, bringing in plenty of light. To respect the 3,20 meter grid and support the weight of the glass, the SERALU company implemented a hybrid facade system combining WICTEC 60 and 50 aluminum profiles from WICONA. The vertical uprights are made of WICTEC 60 while the horizontal crosspieces are made of WICTEC 50 with interior reinforcements to consolidate inertia. The full height entrance posts, without any junction, were also the subject of specific treatment by WICONA which carried out special wiring to achieve the desired dimension of 7,8 meters. The standard length of a WICONA aluminum profile is 6,5 meters.

To increase user comfort, particular attention has been paid to reducing noise pollution. The acoustic performance of the exposed facade on avenue Aristide Briand reaches 35 dB, those to the right of rue d'Arcueil and in the heart of the block 30dB.

Fire protection systems complete the system. In addition to the WICSTYLE 77 FP and WICSTYLE 65 FP doors, joinery elements composed of a fixed part, a French opening and a door with a 1-hour fire rating and a 30-minute flame arrester rating following the designations of the interior premises have been produced. by the company SERALU. These assemblies were the subject of a construction site notice issued by Efectis because they were assembled in steel pre-frames.

The benefits: serving users

Barely completed, The Place has already found a buyer. A CAC 40 group will occupy the entire building at the end of the year. “The Place is a project that contributes to the transformation of the Vache Noire district: it is timeless, focused on a desirable future and sustainable development while retaining the memory of traditions. » concludes Anthony Bechu.