Sauerbruch Hutton

Kinetik Offices . Boulogne-Billancourt

Sauerbruch Hutton . photos: © Sergio Grazia

The buidings of this new Quartier in Boulogne-Billancourt are conceived as highly indi­vidual yet contextual volumes that developed from an initial competition master plan tor this site, formerly Renault workshops. Their mixed use programmes are intended to stimulate the local urbanism that has developed here over a number of years. The master-plan for the block includes an apartment building, specialised housing for the handicapped, a catholic church and an office building designed by Sauerbruch Hutton.

The south facade of the office building defines the edge of a new park and offers extraor­dinary views of the small listed Renault Bâtiment X building in the park, across to the Seine and the Meudon hills beyond. The buildings north facade is gently curved to expand the space of the more densely built inner courtyard; this slight offset from the firstfloor upwards provides an additional green space for users and allows for skylights that bring natural light into the ground floor restaurant connecting the courtyard to the park.

The building is designed with strongly articulate south and west facades to give two very different experiences of the building: in the direct view across the park from the Seine bridge the horizontal banding of the facade is seen to dominate, while closer to, and seen from an angle, the array of glazed vertical "épines" with reflective and coloured finishes creates an oscillating image that changes cinematically as a pedestrian moves along the building.