Rennes, France
Hamonic+Masson along witha/LTA architects have managed to change the skyline of Rennes with their crystalized cliff-like buildings that have enriched the urban environment of the city.
This project was short-listed for a 2021 International Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
Near the Multimodal Exchange Center (railway-bus-metro-bus station), ‘Urban Quartz’ is initiating the urban invention of EuroRennes.
It is therefore taking advantage of the efficient transport network which serves the sector.
Its location, strategic for an office program, meets the conditions for an integrated and lively business sector. The urban development plan, drawn by FGP, is an invitation to bold and radical architecture.
Three chiseled buildings stand out in the railway landscape and change a regular simple skyline. All of the three buildings are shaped in a unique way, resembling a canyon, through which the urban space infiltrates and lead us to discover an unexpected wild garden.
This extraordinary experience offers a lively, generous, and alternative interpretation of the office program.
The three buildings each take their own shape and character, which distinguishes ‘Urban Quartz’ in the city skyline.
To adjust to each other and respond to their orientations, the three buildings transform, gain height or tilt, each turning towards urban breakthroughs.
This dynamic rhythm gives each volume its uniqueness and gives the whole a balance and coherence in its implementation.
The three buildings were designed to provide great flexibility for their occupiers.
They range from small start-ups to large companies.
The introduction of three walkways connecting buildings 1 and 2 contributes to this idea of flexibility, thus making it possible to offer a variable current floor from 500 to 1000 sqm of the surface.
The interaction between the project and its context is underlined by three ‘urban windows.’ These immense framings in the landscape occupy the prow of the constructions and interact with the city.
With a new architectural style and a configuration adapted to the local context, the ‘Urban Quartz’ project offers an alternative to the generic and often agreed, a vocabulary of office buildings.
Project: Urban Quartz
Architects: Hamonic+Masson & Associés
Associate Architects: a/LTA
Client: ICADE
Contractor: Eiffage Construction
Photographers: Takuji Shimmura and Stéphane Chalmeau
