Details
Type
Centre for the assistance of new businesses
Location
Bordeaux, France
Client
Bassins à Flots, Bordeaux’s main industrial harbour, is still active, but restaurants and homes now sit alongside the hangars, warehouses and silos. ANMA/Agence Nicolas Michelin & Associés created a masterplan for the area and invited other architects to design buildings for it, with the intention of retaining the industrial character of the area while allowing for redevelopment and expansion.
As part of this vision, Habiter Autrement was invited to design the ‘perpinere d’entreprise’, a centre for the assistance of new businesses. The building includes working and meeting areas, a computer centre, a restaurant, a gym and a kindergarten. Faced with a site full of activity and variation, Habiter Autrement, in collaboration with the Dutch office Barcode, developed a simple volume, large enough to incorporate the mixed brief. In both its formal restraint and its economy, the centre references the industrial architecture of the harbour area.
Clad in metal, the parallelepiped building stretches 90 m along the entire site. Vertical joints run seamlessly up the facade and over the roof, which is visible to pedestrians. The material continuity lends the building a monolithic quality, which is reinforced by the regular geometry and consistent rhythm of the openings and the cladding.
On the ground floor, larger openings mark the entry points for public facilities. The facade of the otherwise homogenous volume is interrupted by a passage leading into the building’s inner courtyard with direct access to a separate garden at the same level.
The design achieves a balance of simplicity, rhythm, and functional flexibility, offering a robust yet refined environment for the next generation of businesses in the evolving Bassins à Flots district.
Type: Direct commission
Location: Bordeaux
Brief: Centre for new businesses, including offices, restaurant, fitness, nursery, parking
Client: ICADE Promotion
Area: 6,500m²
Phase / Status: APD (Detailed design)
Architects: Habiter Autrement / Barcode
Habiter Autrement: Mia Hägg
Project Manager: Alexandre Dumoulin
Barcode Architects: Dirk Peters, Caro van de Venne, Clément Périssé, Nieves Ruiz Alvarez, Philip Vandermey, Lauren Mishkind, John O’Callaghan
Consultants:
Structure: IOSIS France
MEP / Services: IOSIS France
Urban design / Masterplan: ANMA/Nicolas Michelin, Paris
Coordination: Brenac-Gonzalez, Paris