LA FRANÇAISE HEADQUARTERS - BOULEVARD RASPAIL

This office building designed by the architect Michel Herbert is characteristic of the rational and functionalist 1970s architecture, and stands out from the classic Haussmannian-style building particularly through its sawtooth glass facades.

Although not listed as a French Historic Monument, the building appears on the supplementary inventory.

After a careful analysis of the existing structure, the office claims the concrete skeleton to be in excellent condition – resulting in considerable savings in terms of materials and time (studies, site works and commercialisation). In contrast, the existing simple skin facades are where the work is focused – their thermal quality no longer meets the required norms, but their grid pattern (which strongly contributes to the identity of the building) still meets today’s specifications required for office partitioning. It was then decided to keep the facades, provided that FAA can optimise their use and address the current environmental criteria. The existing contour and profile of the building are then preserved, while reaching the thermal objectives equivalent to those of the British BREEAM label. These soft re-conversion choices allow keeping the original extensive facade length due to the sawtooth shape, representing today a real asset for the problematic natural lighting vs. building depth.

While today, urban regulations prohibits this type of ground plan for reasons of street-alignment, FAA sees this as an opportunity to insert a large forecourt opened to the street, and an advantage for each room to have one operable opaque glazing unit and two fixed glazing units.